BOBBINS   OF   BELGIUM 


11. M.    DUKt.N    U.i.->Ai!l.l  II    Ol     Hi:i.(.llM 


BELGIAN  LACE  MESHES  (Plate  I) 
After  Pierre  Verhagen  in    "La    Dentelle    Beige" 

All  meshes  made  with  bobbins:   1   and  4,  Valenciennes,   round  mesh;   2,  Val- 
enciennes, square  mesh:   3,   Valenciennes,  mesh   almost   round;   5,   Chantiliy; 
f).   Old    Flanders:    7,    Point    de    Paris 


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BELGIAN  LACE  MESHES  (Plate  11) 

After   Pierre  \'erhagen  in    "La    Dentelle    Beige" 

Meshes,   8   to    12,   made    witli   bobbins:    S,    I'.inche:    '>,    :Malines;    10,    Point   de 

Lille,    made    for    l-'raiice;     11,    Point    de     I-ille,     destined    for    IToIland;     12, 

(ianze    I'oint,    made    with    needle,    nsed    in    T^oint    d'Angletcrre:    1.^,    P.rnssels 

macliine-niade    ncl  ;     II,    (  h-, Unary    macliine-niadr    net. 


BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

A  BOOK  OF  BELGIAN  LACE,  LACE- 
WORKERS,  LACE-SCHOOLS  AND 
LACE-VILLAGES 


By 
CHARLOTTE  KELLOGG 

Of  the  Commission  for  Relief  in  Belgium,  and  Author  of 
"Women  of  Belgium" 


FUNK  &  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

1920 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
FUNK  &  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 

[Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America] 
Published  in  February,   1920 


Copyrig-ht  Under  the  Articles  of  the  Copyright  Convention 
of  the  Pan-American  Republics  and  the 
United  States,  August  11,  191Q, 


OS 


CQ 


DEDICATION 

To  the  women  of  the  Brussels  war-time 
lace  committee— Madame  Allard,  the  Vi- 
comtesse  de  Beughem,  Madame  Kefer-Mali, 
and  the  Comtesse  Elizabeth  d'Oultremont, 
with  admiration   and  gratitude. 


V 


.'J80790 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAG» 

Preface         15 

Introduction           25 

I.  Turnhout 49 

II.  Courtrai        79 

III.  Thourout-Thielt-Wynghene     ...  97 

IV.  Grammont          127 

V.  Bruges       I43 

VI.  Kerxken        169 

VII.  Erembodeghem 189 

VIII.  Opbrakel       201 

IX.  Liedekerke         215 

X.  Herzele 231 

XI.  Ghent       247 

XII.  Zele 265 

XIII.  Appendix 275 

Index 307 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

H.M.  Queen  Elizabeth  of  Belgium,  Frontispiece 

Fifteenth  Century  Portrait       .         .         .         .      32 
Showing    heavy    brocade    as    yet    unrelieved 
by  linen  or  lace  trimming. 

Portrait  of  Charles  IX  (1570)   .         .         .        .      33 
Linen  collar  showing  picot  edge  made  with 
the  needle. 

Portrait  Towards  End  of  Sixteenth   Century      40 
Showing    collar    ornamented     with    bobbin- 
made  cluny. 

Anne  of  Austria  by  Van  Dyck  ....      41 
About  1635,  cluny  lace  made   with  bobbins. 

Abbe  Berraly  School,  Turnhout       ...      56 
General  view. 

Nine- Year  Children  Making  Point  de  Paris    .      57 

Point  de  Paris  Class 64 

On  dark  days  lamps  are  lighted  behind  bot- 
tles filled  with  water,  the  rays  passing 
through,    fall   in   spotlights   on  the  cushions. 

Winding  Bobbins  for  the  Children  ...      65 

Point  de  Lille,  or  Point  D'Hollande       .         .       72 
Mesh  showing  "  Esprits  "  or  dots  character- 
istic   of    this    bobbin    lace. 

End  of  a  Point  de  Paris  Scarf  About  2]^  Yards 
Long  on  Which  Collette  Worked  One  Year      73 

In    the    Abbe    Berraly    School,    Collette,    16- 
Years  Old,  Works  with  1,000  Bobbins  .         .      73 

Belgian  Lace  Meshes    (Plate  I)        .         .         .80 
After    Pierre    Verhagen    in    "  La    Dentelle 
Beige." 

Belgian  Lace  Meshes   (Plate  II)       .         .        .81 
After    Pierre    Verhagen    in    "  La    Dentelle 
Beige." 

9 


10  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

Bobbin   Laces 88 

Malines,   Point  de   Paris,   Valenciennes. 

Cushion  Cover  Representing  Belgium's  Grati- 
tude  TO  America   for   Bread       ...       89 
Point    de    Paris    lace    combined    with    linen. 
The  lower  right-hand  centerpiece  shows  the 
rose  design,  emblem  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 

Bobbin   Laces 104 

Torchon,   Cluny,   Old   Flemish,    Binche. 

Table  Cloth  Showing  Arms  of  the  Allies     .     105 
Cut     linen     with     squares     of     Venise     sur- 
rounded   by    filet    and    cluny;    Venise    made 
with    the    needle;    cluny    with    bobbins. 

A  "  Marie  Antoinette  "  in  Chantilly  Lace     .     128 
Made  with  bobbins,  near  Grammont. 

Cushion    Cover 129 

Center  Venise,  borders  Valenciennes,  lace 
executed  by  12  workers  in  one  month, 
embroidery  and  mounting  by  four  women 
in    two   months;    design   by    M.    de    Rudder. 

Tea  Cloth 129 

Point  de  Paris,  cock  design. 

Lace  Makers  of  Bruges 144 

Bruges  and  Similar  Bobbin  Laces      .        .        .145 

Lace     Normal     School,     Bruges.       Beginner's 

Class 152 

Symbolic  color  pattern  on  left-hand  easel; 
demonstration  bobbins  attached  to  colored 
threads  at  right. 

Bed  Cover  in  Duchesse  or  Brussels  Lace  .        .     153 
Made  with  bobbins;  executed  in  Flanders  by 
30  women   in  three   months ;    design   by   the 
Lace  Committee. 

Rosaline,  which  Closely  Resembles  Bruges    .     160 

Details  for  Bruges  Lace 160 

Made   with   bobbins   on   round   cushion. 

Doily  Set  in  Point  de  Paris  in  the  "  Animals 
OF  the  Allies"  Design,  Executed  at  Turn- 
hout 161 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  11 

FACING  PACE 

Point  de  Flandres  or  Flanders  Lace  .     176 

Flowers  made  with  bobbins,  mesh  with  nee- 
dle;  designs  by   the   Lace   Committee. 
Handkerchief  in  Needle-Point  ....     177 
Made   near  Alost.      Both    mesh    and    flowers 
made  with   needle. 
Detail    Showing    Seven    Different    Filling-in 

Stitches  177 

Venise  Designs  by  the  Brussels  Lace  Com- 
mittee         180 

Handkerchief  and  Jewel  Boxes;  Flanders  and 
Venise  Over  Satin  and  Velvet       .         .         .181 

Venise  Banquet  Cloth  Presented  by  the  Lace 

Committee  to  H.M.  Queen  Elizabeth  on  Her 

Return   from   Exile    .....     192-193 

Design   by   M.    de    Rudder ;    executed   by    30 

best  Venise-makers  in  Belgium  in  six  months. 

Cushion  Cover  in  Venise  .....     196 

Pekinese  dog;  design  by  M.  ADard. 
Table   Center   in    Flanders    with    Center   and 

Border  of  Venise 197 

Design  by  Lace  Committee ;  executed  in  West 
Flanders  by  five  workers   in   15   days. 

"The  Tourney"  Banquet  Cloth  .  .  .  208 
Design  reproducing  a  mediaeval  painting  in 
Tournai,  executed  in  Venise  lace  by  10  work- 
ers in  one  month,  mounting  and  embroid- 
ery by  five  workers  in  one  month.  Price  in 
Brussels^    1,000    francs. 

"  Arms  of  Allies  "  Cushion  Cover  in  Venise, 
WITH   Details  in  Flanders       ....     209 

Needle-Point  Scarf  Expressing  Gratitude  of 
Belgium  to  Holland.  Presented  to  H.M. 
Queen    Wilhelmina  ....     216-217 

Executed  by  30  workers  in  eight  months. 

Bobbin    Laces        .......     224 

Malines ;  Application,  flowers  sewn  on  tulle ; 
Duchesse,  with   Needle-Point  insertion. 


12  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

facing  page 

Application  Details  to  be  Sewed  on  Tulle  225 

Upper    flower    shows    open    spaces    left    by 

bobbin    worker    for    needle    worker;    lower 

flower  shows  both  bobbin  and  needle  work 

completed. 

Wedding  Gift  of  Mr.  Hoover  to  Mrs.  Page        .    240 

Executed  in  Venise  and  Flanders  lace  by  30 

women    working    three    months.      American 

eagles  with   outspread  wings,  protecting  the 

Belgian  Lion  enchained  in  the  four  corners. 

Flanders — Needle  Mesh^  Bobbin  Flowers  .    240 

Venise   Lace   Center,   Border   of   Valenciennes    241 

Lace  executed  in  Flanders  by  40  women  in 

two    months ;    embroidery    and    mounting    in 

Brussels   by    four   women    in   three   months. 

Valenciennes,  Square  Mesh      ....    241 

Fan   in   Needle- Point 256 

Executed    by    three    women    in    six    weeks. 

"  Shields    of    the    Allies,"    design    drawn    by 

M.   Knoff   for  the   Lace   Committee. 

Eighteenth  Century  Marriage  Veil  in  Needle- 

PoiNT,  Belonging  to  the  Comtesse  Elizabeth 

D'OULTREMONT     .......      257 

It  would  take  40  workers  about  a  half  year 
to  copy  this  veil. 
At  Work  on  Details  of  a  Needle-Point  Scarf 

TO  be  Presented  to  Queen  Elizabeth       .         .     268 
Needle  Lace  Class-Room   in  the  Trade  Union 

Lace  School  at  Zele 268 

Needle-Point  Illustration  for  the  Fable  of  the 

Fox  and  the  Grapes 269 

In  the  Zele  Lace  School.     Joining  Details  of 

the  Needle-Point  Scarf  Presented  to  Queen 

Elizabeth 269 


PREFACE 


18 


PREFACE 

I  ENTERED  the  lace-world  by  the 
grim  door  of  war.  For  it  was  the 
war-time  work  of  the  women  of  the 
Brussels  Lace  Committee  that  opened  the 
way  to  me. 

Long  before  the  war,  Queen  Elizabeth 
in  Belgium,  like  Queen  Margharita  in 
Italy,  had  sought  means  to  protect  the 
lace  worker,  through  centuries  the  victim 
of  an  economic  injustice,  not  to  say  crime, 
and  to  rescue  and  develop  an  industry 
threatened  from  many  sides.  In  191 1  she 
gave  her  royal  encouragement  to  a  group 
of  prominent  Belgian  women  who  organ- 
ized as  "Amies  de  la  Dentelle,"  Friends 
of  Lace,  and  began  a  lace-saving  cam- 
paign by  trying  to  remedy  the  deplorable 
condition  of  most  of  the  lace  schools,  the 

defective  teaching,  long  hours,  and  pitiful 
15 


16  PREFACE 

pay.  They  could  insist  in  the  schools,  as 
they  could  not  elsewhere,  on  the  right  to 
inspect,  to  grant  or  refuse  patronage. 
They  subsidized  worthy  institutions,  and 
advocated  the  establishment  of  a  lace  nor- 
mal school  and  of  a  special  school  of 
design.  Education  they  felt  to  be  the 
main  road  leading  out  of  the  prevailing 
misery,  and  they  were  making  progress 
along  this  road,  when  suddenly  the 
Invader  poured  over  their  borders. 

While  other  women  hurried  to  open 
refuges  and  hospitals  and  soup-kitchens, 
a  few  of  the  Friends  of  Lace  remembered 
first  the  lace-makers;  and  by  November 
1 9 14,  had  effected  a  war  emergency  or- 
ganization, known  as  the  Brussels  Lace 
Committee,  with  Mrs.  Whitlock  as  hon- 
orary president.  Unfortunately  most  of 
the  lace  dealers  failed  to  cooperate  with 
them,  but  they  won  the  approval  of  the 
powerful  Belgian  Comite  National,  which, 
with  the  Commission  for  Relief  in  Bel- 


PREFACE  17 

gium,  carried  on  the  relief  of  the  occu- 
pied territory  throughout  the  war.  And 
with  an  initial  gift  of  $25,000  from 
America  to  be  converted  into  lace,  they 
were  able  to  start  their  work.  It  soon 
came  to  be  directed  altogether  by  four 
women;  The  Comtesse  Elizabeth  d'Oul- 
tremont,  Lady-in-Waiting  to  Queen 
Elizabeth;  the  Vicomtesse  de  Beughem, 
an  American;  Madame  Josse  AUard,  and 
Madame  Kefer-Mali.  At  the  same  time 
the  aid  and  protection  of  workers  on 
filets  and  other  commonly  called  "imita- 
tion" laces,  was  assigned  by  the  Comite 
National  to  another  group  of  women,  the 
"Union  Patriotique  des  Femmes  Beiges." 
The  Brussels  Lace  Committee  em- 
ployed, as  trusted  business  director  of 
their  offices,  M.  Collart,  generously  re- 
leased to  them  by  the  Allard  Bank,  and 
as  technical  expert,  Madame  Sharlaecken, 
before  the  war  with  the  Compagnie  des 
Indes,  one  of  the  largest  lace  houses  in 


18  PREFACE 

Belgium;  and  as  the  work  developed, 
an  increasing  number  of  designers  and 
aides  necessary  to  a  lace  business  were 
added. 

During  the  first  few  months  the  situa- 
tion seemed  utterly  hopeless;  thread  was 
impossible  to  obtain;  and  even  if  the 
thread  were  forthcoming,  no  one  could 
say  who  would  buy  the  laces  they  might 
encourage  the  women  to  make;  the  Ger- 
mans were  cutting  off  successive  sections 
of  the  lace-making  areas  where  they  had 
established  sub-committees,  and  were  for- 
bidding communication  with  them.  And 
yet  these  four  women  continued  bravely 
to  create  the  foundations  of  a  great  lace 
business — for  an  extraordinary  commer- 
cial organization  grew  from  their  efforts. 

However,  despite  all  their  intelligence 
and  devotion,  such  a  result  would  have 
been  impossible  but  for  a  hard-won  diplo- 
matic victory.  In  early  191 5  Mr.  Hoover 
forced  an  international  agreement  which 


PREFACE  19 

permitted  the  C.  R.  B.  to  bring  thread 
for  the  Lace  Committee  into  Belgium, 
and  to  take  out  an  equivalent  weight  in 
lace,  to  be  sold  in  the  Allied  countries 
for  the  benefit  of  the  workers.  England 
required  a  rigid  control  of  the  thread,  and 
that  it  be  given  only  to  establishments 
open  to  inspection  by  the  C.  R.  B.  At 
one  time  these  thread  shipments  were 
stopt — a  period  of  cruel  anxiety  for 
the  women — but  happily  after  a  re-ad- 
justment they  were  continued.  And  once 
these  international  guaranties  were  ob- 
tained, the  Belgian  Comite  National  was 
able  to  arrange  for  the  distribution  of  the 
thread  to  the  various,  even  remote,  lace 
centers,  and  for  the  return  of  the  finished 
laces  to  Brussels.  They  granted  the 
women  a  subsidy  of  $10,000  and  insured 
to  each  denfelliere  the  chance  to  make  at 
least  three  francs  worth  of  lace  a  week — 
a  small  minimum,  to  be  sure,  but  every 
one   understood    it    might    be    increased 


20  PREFACE 

later,  and  that  if  each  of  the  many  thou- 
sands of  workers  was  to  have  an  equal 
opportunity,  it  could  not  in  the  begin- 
ning be  more.  After  this  the  Lace  Com- 
mittee had  at  times  as  many  as  45,000 
women  on  its  lists.  The  work  in  the 
schools  and  out  of  them  began  to  bear 
fruit.  The  sweating  system,  and  pay- 
ment in  kind  (in  clothing  and  food)  were 
practically  wiped  out,  and  inspection  and 
control  established.  Everywhere  the 
standard  of  design  and  of  execution  was 
raised;  old  patterns  were  restored  and 
improved,  and  by  the  end  of  the  war 
2,237  new  designs  had  been  added. 

But  this  was  not  advance  through  open 
country.  There  was  constant  danger  that  at 
any  moment  the  way  might  be  completely 
barred;  at  any  time  the  guaranties  cov- 
ering the  thread  importations  might  be 
withdrawn.  The  Germans  early  origi- 
nated a  "Lace  Control"  of  their  own,  and 
tried  in  every  possible  way  to  win  over 


PREFACE  21 

the  Belgian  workers,  and  to  buy  up  all 
the  lace  in  the  country.  They  accused  the 
Brussels  Committee  of  being  a  political 
and  patriotic  body  existing  chiefly  to  de- 
feat the  occupying  powers  and  the  Flem- 
ish activists.  Then  there  were  other 
courage-testing  difficulties.  But  despite 
all  obstacles  and  perils,  the  women  per- 
sisted, and  continually  the  precious  skeins 
of  thread,  with  their  message  of  "Carry 
On"  were  flung  out  from  Brussels  to  the 
farthermost  corners  of  the  land,  binding 
all  together  in  a  firm  and  beautiful  web 
of  hope  and  confidence.  For  the  enemy 
was  right  in  suspecting  the  Committee  of 
a  purpose  deeper  than  that  of  merely 
trying  to  save  women  from  the  soup-line; 
they  carried  on  a  patriotic  work  of  high- 
est importance.  To  them  I  owe  a  per- 
sonal debt  of  gratitude,  for  they  per- 
mitted me  to  follow  their  devoted  service 
closely,  and  they  opened  the  door  for  me 
to  a  new  world  of  beauty  and  interest. 


INTRODUCTION 


23 


INTRODUCTION 

I  ACE  is  a  tissue  composed  of  mesK  and 
^  ''flowers"  (pattern),  or  either  one 
alone,  produced  with  a  needle  and  sin- 
gle thread,  or  with  several  threads  mani- 
pulated by  means  of  bobbins.  It  is  the 
product  of  a  natural  evolution  from  early 
embroideries  and  weaving. 

We  possess  no  contemporaneous  his- 
tory of  the  origins  and  development  of 
the  lace  art,  partly,  perhaps,  because  of 
the  tradition,  strong  among  the  initiated, 
of  hiding  its  secrets,  and  of  the  conse- 
quent difficulty  of  an  outsider  to  master 
them,  and  partly  because  successive  wars 
and  world  cataclysms  have  interrupted 
or  destroyed  its  progress. 

We  have  ample  proof,  however,  that 
36 


^ 


26  INTRODUCTION 

lace  in  some  form  existed  in  remote  an- 
tiquity,— in  early  Egypt,  in  Persia,  in 
Bysance  and  Syria,  where  it  was  chiefly 
made  by  slaves ;  the  Greeks  and  Hebrews 
speak  of  needle  lace  as  known  throughout 
all  time.  It  was  not,  in  these  oriental 
countries,  the  delicate  white  mesh  that 
we  call  lace,  which  would  have  been  most 
unbecoming  to  dark  skin,  but  included 
richly  colored  passementeries  and  filets 
and  fringes,  woven  of  gold  and  silver 
thread,  of  dyed  wool  and  cotton,  and  of 
the  coarse  linen  fiber  of  the  Nile  Valley. 
It  was  usually  of  hieratic  and  symbolic 
design,  and  sometimes  sown  with  gems — 
all  capable  of  brilliantly  enhancing  the 
beauty  of  the  East.  Egyptian  ladies  of 
6,000  years  ago  trimmed  their  robes  with 
elaborate  lengths  of  filet,  and  covered 
their  dead  with  it.  In  the  Cinquantenaire 
Museum  at  Brussels  there  is  the  photo- 
graph of  a  remarkable  little  woven  linen 
bag,  similar  to  one  we  might  carry  to- 


INTRODUCTION  «7 

day,  which  was  found  in  the  tomb  of  a 
Priestess  of  Hathor,  bearing  the  mark 
of  one  of  the  earher  dynasties.  Its  mesh 
is  almost  identical  with  that  of  our  mod- 
ern Valenciennes,  and  it  was  undoubtedly 
made  with  bobbins. 

Between  ancient  and  medieval  times, 
the  lace-gap  is  unbridged  by  written 
record ;  we  must  gather  what  we  can  from 
the  archeologist  and  from  the  works  of  the 
sculptor  and  painter.  Occasionally  we  are 
thrilled  by  such  a  discovery  as  that  of  M. 
Bixio,  who  in  excavating  at  Claterna,  an 
old  Roman  City  near  Bologna,  came  upon 
a  set  of  bone  bobbins,  lying  in  pairs,  as  we 
employ  them  in  lace-making  to-day.  But 
interesting  discoveries  are  rare,  and  the 
body  of  our  knowledge  of  lace  history  so 
far  is  meager. 

However,  we  are  interested  primarily, 
not  in  the  ancient  origins  of  the  two  great 
lace  groups,  nor  in  early  passementeries 
and  filets  and  their  processes,  but  in  the 


jes  INTRODUCTION 

marvelous  efflorescence  of  the  lace  art  of 
the  Western  Europe  of  the  i6th,  17th 
and  1 8th  centuries,  and  in  its  still  lovely 
expression  of  to-day. 

In  medieval  painting,  before  the  ap- 
pearance of  linen  and  its  use  as  trimming, 
or  as  lingerie,  I  know  of  no  picture  show- 
ing lace.  Stuffs  were  stiff  and  heavy, 
and  ornamented  with  metal,  or  with  gold 
or  silver  thread.  As  they  became  more 
supple,  we  find,  as  in  the  portrait  of 
Wenceslas  of  Luxemburg  (about  1360) 
decoration  introduced  in  the  clipped  cloth 
border  of  the  collar  and  hood.  This  ser- 
rated edge  suggests  the  first  simple  Cluny 
lace  patterns  that  appeared  later.  Then 
we  see  the  first  linen  showing  through 
the  slashed  sleeve  or  above  the  corsage, 
— one  of  many  paintings  illustrating  this 
development,  is  that  of  the  Duke  of 
Cleves,  by  Memling  (second  half  of  the 
15th  century).  And  shortly  afterward 
the  first  lace  edgings  appear,  the  begin- 


INTRODUCTION  89 

ning  of  our  lace  of  the  middle  ages,  of 
its  rebirth  in  Western  Europe.  The 
search  for  these  details  of  progress  in  the 
paintings  of  European  galleries  is  a  fas- 
cinating and  rewarding  game;  a  Belgian 
friend  of  mine  has  spent  many  years  at 
it. 

The  flowering  of  the  lace-art  was  part 
of  the  great  Renaissance  (lagging  behind, 
to  be  sure,  the  major  arts)  and  now  was 
no  longer  the  work  of  slaves,  but  re- 
garded as  an  important,  independent 
metier,  and  happily  it  usually  escaped 
the  despotism  of  the  medieval  cor- 
porations. Italy,  probably  through 
her  exploitation  in  the  early  part  of  the 
15th  century  of  her  Greek  Colonies,  was 
its  first  western  home,  and  Venice,  the 
center  for  the  exquisite  needle  laces  of 
which  our  museums  fortunately  still  pre- 
serve specimens.  While  laces  made  with 
the  needle  and  single  thread  were  flour- 
ishing  under   the   Doges,   bobbin   laces, 


30  INTRODUCTION 

twisted  and  braided  with  many  threads, 
were  being  made  in  Sicily  and  in  other 
sections  of  the  country. 

From  Venice,  the  secrets  of  the  art 
traveled  easily  in  several  directions,  and 
probably  about  the  close  of  the  15th  cen- 
tury by  way  of  the  thriving  port  of 
Antwerp,  to  the  industrious  and  beauty- 
loving  Flanders,  where  the  seed  fell  on 
most  fertile  soil.  Flanders  possest  a 
multitude  of  workers  already  skilled  in  an 
allied  art,  that  of  weaving,  and  the  nec- 
essary lace  material  in  her  valley  of  the 
Lys,  the  finest  flax  region  of  the  world. 
Valenciennes,  Lille,  Malines,  Ghent, 
Bruges,  turned  to  lace-making  with  a 
veritable  passion;  it  spread  throughout 
wide  districts  of  what  are  now  Northern 
France  and  Belgium. 

During  the   i6th  and   17th  centuries,*  \ 
the  lace  industry  made  phenomenal  prog--) 
ress,    both    extensively    and    intensively. 
Holland    and    England    sent    continually 


INTRODUCTION  31 

larger  orders  to  Flanders.  As  cloths 
grew  finer  and  softer,  and  the  mode  of 
wearing  them  more  graceful,  and  as  dain- 
tier linens  were  increasingly  employed, 
lace  became  ever  more  filmy  and  exquis- 
ite. A  worker  spent  perhaps  a  whole 
year  on  a  single  meter  of  Valenciennes, 
one  head-dress  cost  as  much  as  200,000 
livres.  Every  lace  had  its  time,  its  sea- 
son. During  this  epoch,  needle  laces 
were  supreme,  as  bobbin  laces  were  to 
be  in  the  i8th  century. 

Under  Louis  XIV  lace  reached  its 
climax  of  perfection  and  beauty.  Colbert 
imported  lace-women  from  each  center 
where  they  had  been  conspicuously  suc- 
cessful. He  encouraged  the  invention  of 
new  designs  and  technique ;  he  subsidized 
schools  in  many  cities,  at  Reims,  Alen^on, 
Arras,  Sedan,  and  he  threatened  with 
the  death  penalty  those  who  might  at- 
tempt to  carry  lace  secrets  beyond  the 
French  borders, — in  every  way  he  sought 


32  INTRODUCTION 

to  develop  an  art  that  should  belong 
peculiarly  to  France.  Thus  directed  and 
subsidized  by  the  state,  and  nurtured  and 
stimulated  by  a  beauty-seeking  court, 
whose  love  of  luxury  was  still  controlled 
by  taste  and  refinement,  it  is  not  surpriz- 
ing that  this  lace-period  surpassed  any 
other  known.  It  was  true  of  the  Court  of 
Louis  XIV  as  of  that  of  Louis  XIII  that 
a  seigneur  was  known  by  the  number  and 
quality  of  his  lace  points;  some  of  them 
possest  several  hundred  garnitures.  Un- 
fortunately the  workers  did  not  profit  by 
this  brilliant  development, — they  seem 
from  the  beginning  predestined  to  be  the 
victims  of  a  social  and  economic  slavery. 
But  there  were  already  evidences  of 
an  attempt  to  control  a  demand  for  lux- 
ury that  threatened  disaster.  With  the 
1 6th  century,  heavy  duties  and  excess 
taxes  were  levied  upon  lace.  An  edict, 
dated  1729,  prohibited  the  wearing  of  it, 


FIFTEENTH    CENTURY    PORTRAIT 

Showing  heavy  brocade  as  yet  unrelieved  by  linen  or  lace  trimming 


PORTRAIT    OF    CHARLES    TX     (1570) 

T.ineii   collar   showing  picot  edge  made   with   tlie   needle 


INTRODUCTION  33 

in   the   hope   of   checking   over-extrava- 
gance in  dress. 

After  its  apogee  under  Louis  XIV, 
lace-making  was  caught,  along  with  the 
other  arts,  in  the  tide  of  degeneracy.  Its 
designs  were  marked  by  fantasy  and  gro- 
tesqueness,  rather  than  by  the  delicacy 
and  beauty  of  the  preceding  period;  tho 
while  it  deteriorated  in  design,  its  tech- 
nique grew  constantly  finer  and  more 
complicated,  until,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  workmanship  at  least,  it  seemed 
almost  superhuman.  But  in  the  second 
half  of  the  i8th  century,  wearied  of  com- 
plications and  extravagance,  people 
amused  themselves  by  a  return  to  sim- 
plicity. The  Marquise  de  Pompadour 
affected  laces  sown  with  simple  "flowers," 
and  Marie  Antoinette  went  further  in 
preferring  a  pattern  of  scattered  "points" 
or  peas.  With  this  return  to  the  primi- 
tive in  design,  the  technique  of  lace  re- 
verted also.     In  many  quarters,  the  sheer 


34.  INTRODUCTION 

muslins  of  the  Indias  gained  favor  over 
lace.  Trade,  already  burdened  with  the 
duties  and  imports  that  had  grown  up 
around  the  extravagant  laces,  suffered 
further  from  the  sudden  popularity  of  the 
simple  costume. 

The  death-blow  of  the  industry  in 
France  was  to  follow  close  on  the  heels 
of  this  new  fashion.  Since  lace  had  been 
the  particular  pride  of  the  aristocrat,  the 
Revolution  made  it  a  crime  to  appear  in 
it.  In  such  one-time  famous  centers  as 
Valenciennes  and  Lille,  the  bobbins 
ceased,  tho  the  industry  of  that  region 
sought  refuge  farther  west,  in  Bailleul, — 
in  Bailleul,  dust  and  ashes  to-day!  For- 
tunately in  Belgium,  lace-making  gener- 
ally survived  the  crisis  of  the  Revolution, 
tho  it  has  suffered  from  succeeding  dis- 
astrous influences. 

At  the  opening  of  the  19th  century  and 
under  the  Empire,  taste  was  heavy,  design 
rigid  and  military,  with  nothing  in  com- 


INTRODUCTION  36 

mon  with  true  lace  motifs.  During  the 
opening  years  of  1800  the  invention  of 
machine-made  tulle,  brought  from  Eng- 
land to  Calais,  effected  further  sad 
changes  in  the  lace- world;  scarfs,  veils, 
entire  robes  of  tulle,  ornamented  with 
applications  of  needle  or  bobbin-made  de- 
tails— often  palms  and  laurel  wreaths — 
were  all  the  mode.  People  preferred  these 
to  the  exquisite  lace  jabots  and  flounces  of 
the  preceding  century.  In  1833  cotton 
thread  began  to  be  used  instead  of  the 
stronger  linen  of  the  best  lace  periods.  The 
delicate  lace-art  continued  to  suffer  with 
all  the  others  under  the  general  decadence 
of  the  reign  of  Louis  Philippe  and  the  Sec- 
ond Empire.  Industrial  and  commercial 
development  was  the  note  of  the  age;  the 
rich  amused  themselves  in  travel,  in  new 
scenes  and  sports,  rather  than  in  foster- 
ing the  arts.  In  fact,  during  the  thirty 
years  following  the  war  of  1870,  lace 
seemed  almost  forgotten  except  in  Amer- 


36  INTRODUCTION 

ica.  The  number  of  workers  in  Belgium 
fell  from  between  lOO  and  150,000,  to 
50,000  or  less. 

But  before  the  world  was  plunged  into 
this  last,  most  destructive  of  wars,  there 
had  been  signs  of  a  renaissance  in  the 
decorative  arts.  People  had  begun  to 
read  and  compare,  and  refine  their  taste. 
The  rulers  of  Italy  and  France  and  Bel- 
gium were  winning  results  in  their  at- 
tempts to  rescue,  and  to  revive  and  de- 
velop the  lace-art,  which  had  seemed 
threatened  with  extinction.  Then  came 
the  war — and  the  devastation  of  entire 
lace  regions,  like  that  of  Bailleul  in 
France,  and  of  Ypres  in  Belgium.  It  is 
true  that  many  of  the  refugee  lace- 
women  have  been  employed  and  encour- 
aged during  the  four  years,  by  certain 
committees  in  France  and  free  Belgium. 
And  in  occupied  Belgium,  the  unceasing 
efforts  of  the  Brussels  Lace  Committee 
have  borne  rich  fruit.  Whether  the  higher 


INTRODUCTION  3t 

Standards  of  lace  design  and  technique, 
and  the  improved  condition  of  the  lace 
workers — better  education,  shorter  hours, 
higher  pay — will  be  maintained  under 
post-war  conditions  is  yet  to  be  proved. 
Over  this  difficult  hour  of  reconstruction, 
of  transfer  from  war  to  what  we  fondly 
call  normal  conditions,  we  can  but  hope 
to  carry  the  hard-won  gains  of  the  testing 
period. 

In  this  little  book  I  make  no  attempt 
to  present  a  history  of  lace,  or  a  detailed 
analysis  of  its  processes.  I  have  wished 
merely  to  set  down  in  simple  form  a  few 
of  my  observations  in  the  lace  districts 
of  Belgium,  as  the  war  has  left  her.  To 
follow  them  one  does  not  need  even  an 
elementary  knowledge  of  the  important 
lace  forms,  tho  that  is  easily  acquired. 
For  there  are  but  two  large  groups;  the 
needle-lace  group,  and  the  bobbin-lace 
group,  between  which  we  learn  quickly  to 
distinguish.     We  can  not  prove  the  time 


38  INTRODUCTION 

of  their  respective  origins;  as  we  know 
them,  they  seem  to  have  existed  side  by 
side,  as  they  do  in  the  Belgium  of  to-day. 
Sometimes  one  was  more  popular,  some- 
times the  other. 

To  place  a  piece  of  lace,  we  have  first 
but  to  ask  the  question,  "Was  it  made 
with  a  needle,  and  by  looping  and  twist- 
ing and  weaving  a  single  thread;  or  was 
it  made  by  braiding  and  twisting  and 
weaving  several  threads,  by  means  of 
bobbins  and  a  round  or  a  square  cush- 
ion?'* 

In  general,  there  is  but  one  technique 
for  all  needle  laces,  tho  there  is  no 
limit  to  the  variety  of  stitches  the  needle 
worker  may  employ.  I  have  seen  a  scarf, 
made  during  the  war  for  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, in  which  there  were  many  hundred 
different  points.  One  comes  soon  to 
recognize  the  important  needle  laces;  the 
exquisite  French  Alengons  and  Argentins 
of  earlier  days,  with  their  meshes  made 


INTRODUCTION  39 

with  a  button-hole  loop,  and  their  flowers 
stiffened  with  horsehair;  the  various 
Venetian  points, — Venise,  Burano,  and 
Rose  point;  and  the  extremely  popular 
Brussels  point,  with  its  gauze  mesh  and 
raised  flowers.  It  is  characteristic  of 
these  needle  laces,  that  the  flowers  are 
thrown  into  relief,  sometimes  high,  some- 
times scarcely  perceptible. 

Bobbin  laces  may  be  made  with  a  dozen 
or  with  one  hundred  times  as  many 
threads,  according  to  the  design  and 
width  of  the  lace.  They  fall  into  two 
sub-groups,  the  first  including  laces  made 
with  uncut  threads,  in  a  single  piece;  the 
second,  those  made  detail  by  detail,  in 
which  the  threads  are  cut  as  each  is  fin- 
ished, the  completed  lace  piece  being  made 
by  joining  these  separate  parts.  This 
second  method  was  not  introduced  until 
the  latter  half  of  the  17th  century. 

In  the  first  group,  made  with  uncut 
threads,   are   the  early   Clunys   and   the 


40  INTRODUCTION 

common  Torchons,  Old  Flanders,  the 
beautiful  Valenciennes,  Point  de  Paris, 
Point  de  Lille,  Malines  and  Binche,  with 
their  delicate  round,  or  square  or  hexag- 
onal meshes,  from  which  the  pattern 
blossoms.  Their  flowers  are  flat,  never 
lifted  in  relief,  tho  a  heavy  outlining 
thread  often  sets  them  ofif  brilliantly 
from  the  surrounding  field. 

The  second  bobbin  group,  in  which  the 
final  lace  piece  is  composed  of  united  de- 
tails, includes  black  and  white  Chantilly, 
Blonde,  popular  with  Spanish  peoples, 
Brussels  Duchesse  and  Bruges  Duchesse, 
most  frequently  displayed  in  our  Amer- 
ican shops,  and  the  finer  Rosaline,  which 
was  in  great  demand  when  the  war  broke 
out.  This  group  of  bobbin  laces  admits 
a  kind  of  relief. 

Some  laces  combine  both  needle  and 
bobbin  points.  In  the  lovely  Point  d'An- 
gleterre,  increasingly  difficult  to  obtain, 
bobbin-made    flowers   are    united   by   an 


PORTRAIT    TOWARD    CLOSE    OF    SIXTEENTH    CENTURY 

Showing  collar  ornamented   with  linhhin-made  ohuiv 


ANiNTE    OF    AUSTRIA    RY    VAN    DYCK 

About  1635,  cluny  lace  made  with  bobbins 


INTRODUCTION  41 

airy  needle  mesh.  And  the  coarser  Flan- 
ders lace  has  the  same  composition. 

There  are,  besides,  the  familiar  and 
often  beautiful  Applications,  in  which 
either  needle  or  bobbin-made  flowers  are 
stitched,  or  appliqiied  on  machine-made 
tulle,  or,  rarely,  on  a  tulle  made  by  hand. 
And  various  mixed  laces,  fantasies  and 
embroidered  tulles,  as  well  as  a  whole 
company  of  cheaper  tissues  called  lace,  but 
which  can  not  honestly  claim  the  name, 
are  trying  always  to  crowd  the  true  lace 
from  the  market. 

Naturally,  the  technique  of  any  given 
kind  of  lace  has  undergone  various  trans- 
formations through  the  centuries.  The 
Valenciennes  mesh,  for  instance,  first  had 
round  spaces,  while  square  ones  became 
more  popular  later.  During  a  certain 
period  the  introduction  of  jours,  or  open- 
work eflfects,  added  an  airy  lightness  to 
many  laces. 

I  had  the  pleasure  recently  of  being 


42  INTRODUCTION 

with  a  friend  of  mine,  the  sister  of  the 
Belgian  Consul-General  at  New  York, 
Madame  Kefer-Mah,  who  has  devoted 
twenty  years  to  the  study  of  lace,  when 
she  first  examined  a  lace  .collection  lately 
presented  to  the  Cinquantenaire  Museum. 
With  magnifying  glass  I  followed  from 
case  to  case,  as  she  placed  each  specimen 
in  its  country  and  century,  according  to 
its  design,  its  mesh,  the  manner  of  direct- 
ing the  threads,  the  relief  of  the  flowers, 
the  various  stitches  or  the  kind  of  thread 
employed.  As  I  listened  to  her,  it  was 
easy  to  appreciate  why  lace  may  become 
an  all-absorbing  interest.  Madame  Kefer- 
Mali's  love  for  the  lace  itself  is  now  sub- 
ordinate to  her  passionate  desire  to  se- 
cure justice  for  the  lace-worker.  As  she 
takes  a  filmy  length  in  her  hand,  her  first 
thought  is  of  the  talent  and  patience  of 
the  girl  or  woman  who  made  it,  of  the 
eye-straining,  meticulous  labor  it  repre- 
sents, and  of  the  pittance  still  paid  her 


INTRODUCTION  43 

for  her  gift  to  the  world  of  art.  Madame 
Kefer-MaH  has  already  won  something 
for  the  dentelliere  and  she  will  continue 
to  fight  for  more. 

Tho  there  are  lace  sections  in  widely 
scattered  parts  of  Belgium,  none  (except 
Turnhout)  is  so  important  as  those  of 
the  two  Flanders.  Western  and  Eastern 
Flanders  form  an  almost  continuous  and 
unrivalled  lace  region,  which  breaks  up 
irregularly  into  districts,  each  celebrated 
for  a  particular  kind,  or  for  several  kinds 
of  lace.  However,  it  would  be  impossi- 
ble to  draw  an  accurate  map  illustrating 
the  Belgian  lace  situation,  either  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  varieties  made  and 
their  quality,  or  of  the  workers.  It  seems, 
indeed,  at  times  that  lace  was  invented  to 
defeat  the  statistician,  for  he  no  sooner 
reaches  a  conclusion  than  it  proves  in- 
exact; a  factory  rises  near  a  certain  river 
and  the  lace  women  desert  their  cushions 
to  accept  its  better  wages;  in  a  village 


44  INTRODUCTION 

long  devoted  to  Needle  Point,  young- 
girls  discover  that  the  bobbin-made 
Clunys  pay  better,  or  they  marry  and 
make  no  lace  at  all  until  their  children 
are  partly  grown;  poor  crops  and  result- 
ing misery  may  send  others  who  have  not 
for  some  time  been  listed  as  workers  back 
to  their  cushions.  For,  since  despite  the 
many  schools  and  work-rooms,  the  great 
majority  of  women  still  work  at  home, 
lace-making  is  peculiarly  sensitive  to 
every  change  in  family  and  community 
life.  We  may  say,  however,  that  despite 
constantly  shifting  conditions.  Western 
Flanders  forms  a  great  bobbin-lace  area, 
unquestionably  the  most  important  in  the 
w^orld  to-day,  while  Eastern  Flanders  has 
been  for  centuries  and  still  is,  famous  for 
its  needle  points. 

Unfortunately,  too,  because  of  the  mis- 
erable lace-wage  (in  Belgium,  before  the 
war,  it  averaged  about  a  franc  a  day) 
this  industry  has  been  regarded  always 


INTRODUCTlOxN  45 

as  a  supplementary  occupation,  on  which 
the  family  could  not  rely  for  its  main 
support,  and  which  was  not  capable  of 
organization  and  amelioration  as  other 
industries  are.  The  slavery  conditions 
have  undoubtedly  been  due  chiefly  to  lack 
of  good  schools  and  constructive  lace 
training,  and  to  the  system  by  which  a 
facteur,  or  first  buyer,  collects  the  laces, 
to  re-sell  them  to  a  fabricant,  or  dealer, 
who  in  turn  may  sell  them  to  a  larger 
fabricant — a  system  permitting  any  num- 
ber of  intermediaries — and  also  to  the 
fact  that  the  women,  scattered  as  they 
are  throughout  the  agricultural  regions, 
have  never  protected  themselves  by  form- 
ing syndicates.  The  first  step  toward 
emancipation  has  been  taken;  the  new 
teaching  is  under  way.  The  fatal  system 
of  the  many  intermediaries  remains  to  be 
dealt  with — to  be  swept  away.  And  it  is 
hoped  that  feeling  the  new  power  educa- 
tion will  give  them,  the  dentellieres  will 


46  INTRODUCTION 

at  last  find  ways  either  through  unions 
or  by  other  means,  of  protecting  them- 
selves. 

For  the  rest,  fixt  data  are  difficult  to 
obtain.  The  lace  industry  can  not  be  cap- 
tured and  subjected  to  cold  analysis  and 
tabulation.  It  must  be  studied  differ- 
ently from  other  industries  that  can  be 
localized.  As  in  learning  to  know  the 
garden  flowers  of  a  country,  one  must  go 
from  doorstep  to  doorstep,  so  if  one 
wishes  to  understand  lace,  one  should 
become  familiar  with  its  milieu,  the  fam- 
ily and  community  life  from  which  it 
springs.  In  a  sense,  then,  these  little 
journeys  to  lace  districts  which  are  the 
subjects  of  my  chapters,  may  suggest 
more  about  what  lace  really  is  than  a 
more  technical  and  formidable  volume. 


I 

TURNHOUT 


47 


TURNHOUT 

Lace  Children  of  the  North 

I  ACE  is  the  flower  of  Belgium;  the 
A  white  blossom  that  springs  from  the 
teeming  plains  of  the  Flanders,  from 
the  agricultural  districts,  and  from  the 
mournful  Campine  of  the  North.  Dur- 
ing the  long  and  solitary  winters,  when 
work  in  the  fields  is  impossible,  thousands 
of  women  and  girls  and  little  children 
turn  to  their  lace  cushions,  and  dreary 
rooms  are  enlivened  by  the  music  of  the 
flying  bobbins.  If  the  lace  is  Needle  Point, 
and  lacks  the  accompanying  click-clack  of 
the  shifting  fuseaux,  it  nevertheless  gives 
purpose  and  value  to  the  otherwise  al- 
most unsupportable  winter  days.  How- 
49 


50  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

ever,  despite  the  time  that  must  be  sub- 
tracted for  weeding,  for  gathering  the  all- 
important  potato  crop,  and  for  other 
farm  duties,  summer  with  its  bright  light 
and  long  day,  is  the  true  lace  season;  it 
is  only  then  that  some  of  the  finest  varie- 
ties can  be  executed.  Coarser  pieces  must 
be  substituted  for  the  dull,  eye-straining 
days. 

To  be  sure,  some  lace-making  is  still 
carried  on  in  certain  cities,  but  very  little. 
This  delicate  metier  can  not  successfully 
combat  the  influences  of  the  social  and 
industrial  groupings  of  the  larger  cen- 
ters; the  living  wage,  the  shorter  hours, 
the  distractions  of  cinema  and  cafe.  The 
cities  remain  the  logical  centers  for  the 
normal  and  training-schools,  for  assem- 
bling, and  display,  and  sale;  but  the  age- 
old  patience  of  the  lace-maker  is  born  of 
a  certain  ignorance  and  isolation.  This 
does  not  mean  that  the  industry  may  not 
persist  still  on  the  fringes  of  some  of  the 


TURNHOUT  51 

larger  cities,  or  flourish  in  nearby  vil- 
lages— it  does;  and  in  three  conspicuous 
instances,  until  the  war,  it  remained  the 
dominating  activity  of  a  city.  Bruges, 
Ypres,  and  Turnhout,  could  truly  be 
called  "lace  cities."  Now  there  are  but 
two;  for  Ypres,  the  pearl  of  Flanders,  is 
gone. 

Turnhout,  a  town  of  24,000  inhabi- 
tants, in  the  Northern  Campine  district, 
is  not  only  a  "lace  city,"  counting  6,000 
workers,  but  if  one  considers  its  long  list 
of  excellent  lace-schools,  the  fine  varieties 
made  there,  and  the  quality  of  the  work- 
manship, it  appears  sufficiently  important 
to  challenge  the  leadership  of  Bruges. 
However,  Turnhout  stands  practically 
alone  in  the  north,  while  Bruges  is  the 
center  of  western  Flanders,  one  of  the 
largest  lace  contributing  areas  in  Bel- 
gium, and  promises,  therefore,  to  hold 
for  a  long  time  her  title  of  first  lace-city. 

It  is  strange  to  think  of  Turnhout  as 


52  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

a  remote  town,  since  it  is  scarcely  two 
hours  by  motor  from  Antwerp;  but  the 
first  glimpse  of  the  intervening  sand 
wastes  of  the  Campine  region  awakens 
at  once  a  sensation  of  loneliness,  of  isola- 
tion. I  made  the  journey  in  late  Novem- 
ber, reaching  Turnhout  about  noon  of 
a  low  gray  day,  just  as  hundreds  of 
golden-haired  children — no  mists  could 
dull  the  bright  gold  of  their  hair — were 
clattering  along  the  stone  sidewalks  in 
their  wooden  shoes,  on  their  way  home 
from  school.  As  always,  I  marveled  at 
the  way  they  could  leap  and  run  without 
losing  their  sabots.  They  were  "lace 
children,"  nearly  all  of  them  part  of  the 
little  army  of  i,8oo  in  the  lace-schools, 
and  because  of  the  intelligent  work  of 
the  soup-kitchens  and  dining-rooms  for 
debilitated  children  during  the  four  years 
of  war,  were  probably,  many  of  them, 
in  better  physical  condition  than  they  had 
been  at  its  beginning.    The  women  of  the 


TURNHOUT  6S 

Brussels  Lace  Committee  had  succeeded, 
too,  in  augmenting  their  food  ration  from 
time  to  time.  Their  chief  visible  need 
was  for  stockings  and  shoes — and  I  knew 
from  the  teachers  later  that  they  sadly 
lacked  underclothes.  Mothers  can  patch 
and  repatch,  and  add  in  various  ways  to 
outer  garments;  but  after  a  certain  num- 
ber of  washings,  undergarments  simply 
disappear. 

I  went  first  to  the  convent  of  the  Abbe 
Berraly  which,  during  the  war,  encour- 
aged -by  the  advice  arid  support  of  the 
Lace  Committee,  has  developed  into  the 
model  school  of  Belgium.  It  is  situated 
in  a  crowded  part  of  the  town,  but  its 
own  fine  brick  buildings  cluster  about  a 
spacious  courtyard  and  vegetable  gar- 
dens. In  summer  the  children  work 
much  out  of  doors,  tho  when  they  are 
inside  their  class-rooms  it  seems  still  im- 
possible for  the  teachers  to  break  with 
the  tradition  of  the  closed  window. 


64  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

I  began  my  visit  in  a  little  room  at 
the  right  of  the  entrance  hall,  where  six 
older  girls  were  still  at  work,  tho  the 
500  other  pupils  had  gone  for  their  lunch. 
Dozens  of  rubbed  carbon  copies  of  lace 
patterns  were  pinned  to  the  walls  along 
with  executed  samples  of  the  lace  they 
represented.  This  was  a  pique  class- 
room; the  young  women  seated  at  high, 
narrow  tables,  were  carefully  at  work  on 
pieces  of  glossy  green  cardboard  on 
which  the  lace  design  had  been  drawn 
and  which  they  were  pricking  with  pins, 
or  covering  with  tiny  holes,  that  indicate 
the  position  of  the  pins  that  must  hold 
the  thread  as  it  is  twisted  or  looped  or 
braided,  by  the  worker.  The  cardboard 
pique  is  in  a  sense  both  the  beginning 
and  the  end  of  the  lace  course;  the  be- 
ginning, since  no  pupil  can  start  his  lace 
without  the  pique,  or  interpreted  pattern, 
and  the  end,  since  it  is  the  most  difficult 
of  all  the  processes  in  the  technique  of 


TURNHOUT  66 

the  lace.  The  piqueuse  must  understand 
the  design  and  its  practical  execution, 
must  interpret  the  picture  to  the  worker 
in  terms  of  pin-pricks  marking  the  prog- 
ress of  her  thread.  A  good  piqueuse 
knows  immediately,  on  looking  at  a 
drawing,  whether  it  is  a  true  lace  design, 
or  must  be  adapted,  and  also  in  which 
kind  of  lace  it  can  be  best  exprest.  As 
she  shifts  a  pin-prick  less  than  a  hair's 
width  to  the  left  or  to  the  right  she 
varies  appreciably  the  resulting  mesh  or 
flower.  She  has  considerable  liberty  in 
deciding  which  particular  stitches  will  be 
most  effective  to  fill  in  the  jours,  or  open- 
work spaces  indicated  in  the  pattern. 

One  of  the  great  evils  of  the  past  has 
been  the  absence  of  training-schools,  and 
the  consequent  lack  of  piqueuses;  in  each 
generation  there  have  been  but  a  few 
good  ones,  who  have,  in  a  sense,  held 
the  lace  industry  in  their  hands.  Before 
the  war,  Ypres  had  two  famous  pique- 


56  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

uses,  to  whom  patterns  were  sent  from  an 
entire  region;  and  in  the  town  of  Turn- 
hout  to-day,  with  its  thousands  of  work- 
ers, tho  there  are  several  less  experi- 
enced piqueuses,  there  is  but  one  woman 
to  whom  the  finest  and  most  complicated 
drawings  can  be  entrusted  for  interpre- 
tation. She  is  the  only  person,  for  exam- 
ple, who  could  make  the  pique  for  the 
beautiful  scarf,  which  I  saw  later  being 
executed  in  the  Point  de  Paris  room — for 
that  she  received  90  francs.  It  is  a  com- 
mon saying  that  one  must  be  born  a 
piqueuse  to  succeed;  at  least  it  remains 
true  that  in  addition  to  her  capacity 
for  an  intricate  and  most  meticulous 
labor,  the  piqueuse  should  possess  a  high 
sensitiveness  to  art  values. 

The  little  room  in  the  Abbe  Berraly's 
school  is  one  expression  of  the  Lace 
Committee's  conviction  that  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  industry  and  of  the  lace- 
maker  will  come  only  through  education. 


TURNHOUT  57 

in  general  the  women  of  the  past  have 
sat  dumbly  before  their  cushions,  helpless 
to  do  anything  but  continue  to  execute, 
year  after  year,  the  particular  cardboard 
pattern  the  facteur,  or  lace  agent,  placed 
before  them.  They  had  little  or  no  con- 
ception of  the  rich  art  world  of  which 
their  flowered  flounces  were  a  part,  and 
no  feeling  at  all  of  their  power  to  in- 
fluence that  world  by  interpreting  a  de- 
sign for  themselves,  or  by  correcting  or 
improving  it,  or  even  perhaps  by  creating 
a  new  one.  Not  that  all  workers  should 
become  designers,  or  even  piqueuses — 
progress  depends,  as  it  does  in  other  in- 
dustries, on  specialization;  but  at  least 
trained  workers  will  enjoy  the  freedom  to 
choose  and  the  feeling  of  independence 
that  comes  from  a  thorough  knowledge 
of  their  metier. 

In  this  room  then  was  a  class  of  spe- 
cialists, six  smiling,  intelligent  young 
women    between    i6    and    i8    equipping 


58  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

themselves  as  experts  in  interpretation. 
The  designs  on  which  they  worked,  many 
of  them  revivals  of  classic  ones  long  for- 
gotten, or  beautiful  recent  creations  of 
Belgian  artists,  had  been  sent  up  to  them 
from  the  Committee's  central  room  of 
design  in -Brussels.  Before  the  war,  they 
would  have  come  from  the  particular  lace 
dealer  to  whose  agent  their  laces  were 
sold. 

Opening  from  the  little  pattern  room 
I  found  the  office  with  its  great  oak  ar- 
moire,  where  the  costly  finished  laces  are 
stored  until  the  day  they  are  taken  to 
Brussels,  to  be  combined  into  beautiful 
confections  for  the  salon  or  bedroom  or 
dining-room,  or  for  personal  adornment. 
Of  course,  some  are  always  resold  by  the 
meter,  but  one  of  the  chief  successes  of 
the  Lace  Committee  has  been  the  employ- 
ment of  motifs  and  yard  laces  in  the  pro- 
duction  of   cloths   and   spreads   and   in- 


TURNHOUT  59 

numerable  articles  of  a  loveliness  hith- 
erto unknown. 

From  the  office  and  the  little  room 
where  the  pricked  cardboard  patterns  are 
prepared  for  the  cushions,  I  went  further 
along  the  hall,  and  turned  to  the  left, 
where  at  the  foot  of  a  staircase  were 
new  wooden  benches  awaiting  the  sabots 
of  the  returning  children.  These  benches 
were  new  because  the  Germans,  who, 
here  as  elsewhere,  had  driven  the  chil- 
dren from  their  school,  had  burned  their 
benches,  and  not  only  the  benches,  but  all 
visible  wood — they  had  torn  casements 
from  the  windows  and  doorways,  as  well 
as  removing  every  knob  and  fixture.  This 
was  disgusting,  but  more  or  less  under- 
standable. Their  country  demanded 
more  cannon,  therefore  they  took  brass 
and  copper;  they  were  cold,  so  they 
ripped  off  the  nearest  available  piece  of 
wood.  But  wood  and  metal  failed  to 
satisfy  them;  upstairs  at  one  end  of  the 


60  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

largest  room  there  is  a  pretty  stage 
arranged  for  school  festivals,  with  a 
painted  forest  background,  and  side  wing- 
drops  picturing  meadow-lands.  These 
fathers  and  brothers  of  German  children 
slashed  and  ripped  the  painted  canvas 
forest  and  ran  their  bayonets  through  the 
foreground  meadows,  with  no  spur  be- 
yond that  of  the  pleasure  in  the  act;  for 
no  Inch  of  the  canvas  had  been  taken 
away — I  could  have  replaced  the  whole 
from  the  rags. 

It  was  still  only  a  little  past  one  o'clock, 
and  the  children  had  not  yet  returned.  I 
went  into  the  beginners'  room,  where 
large  windows  let  in  all  the  light  there 
was  on  this  gray  day,  and  saw  the  long, 
even  rows  of  low  rush-seated,  high- 
backed  chairs,  with  the  school-room  sabots 
(where  the  children  were  fortunate  enough 
to  possess  this  second  pair)  hanging  from 
the  backs.  Before  each  chair  was  a 
round  or  square  work-cushion  and  over 


TURNHOUT  61 

each  cushion  a  white  cloth  carefully 
spread  to  protect  the  precious  thread- 
bearing  bobbins  beneath.  The  whole 
empty,  silent  place  seemed  prepared  for 
a  ceremonial  or  religious  rite;  and  every 
snowy  cushion  a  tiny  altar  awaiting  its 
ministrant. 

At  last  they  were  coming  back,  the 
younger  children  clattering  in  ahead  of 
the  older  girls,  to  deposit  their  muddy 
street  sabots  on  the  benches.  Such  a 
rush  of  yellow-haired  babies  for  their 
chairs — several  of  them  were  no  more 
than  seven  years  old ;  many  were  between 
nine  and  ten.  Little  feet  slipt  into  the 
clean  sabots,  white  cloths  were  carefully 
lifted  and  folded,  sisters  and  teachers 
began  their  rounds  of  inspection  and  in- 
struction, as  tiny  hands  took  their  posi- 
tions over  the  heaps  of  bobbins — one  at 
the  left,  one  at  the  right — and  the  cadence 
of  the  clicking  wood  began.  It  was  im- 
possible for  me  to  follow  these  incredible 


62  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

little  fingers  as  they  twisted  and  braided 
from  pin  to  pin.  I  had  seen  scales  so 
rapidly  played  that  the  successive  mo- 
tions were  only  a  blur,  but  these  shiftings 
back  and  forth  of  the  bobbins  were  even 
more  bewildering.  More  strangely  mov- 
ing than  the  picture  of  any  great  orches- 
tra where  gifted  fingers  wrung  melody 
from  a  myriad  of  strings,  was  this  of  the 
play  of  hundreds  of  baby  hands  over 
threads  and  bobbins,  as  the  flowers  blos- 
somed beneath  them.  It  is  said  that  to 
become  a  good  lace-maker  one  must 
begin,  as  he  would  if  he  expected  to  be- 
come a  distinguished  pianist,  at  latest  at 
the  age  of  seven  or  eight. 

The  greater  number  of  these  little  girls 
were  making  Point  de  Paris  edgings. 
They  had  their  pricked  patterns  pinned 
near  the  top  of  the  square  linen-covered 
cushions  and  were  working  the  threads 
vertically  toward  them.  Since  the  pins 
which  hold  the  threads  in  place  must  be 


TURNHOUT  63 

constantly  moved  along  as  the  work  pro- 
ceeds, it  is  very  important  that  the  cush- 
ion should  be  stuffed  with  something  that 
the  pins  can  easily  penetrate.  These  par- 
ticular cushions  were  stuffed  with  wool, 
some  contain  straw,  and  the  linen  cover- 
ing was  blue,  tho  it  is  often  the  nat- 
ural color.  Besides  guiding  the  tiny 
brass  pins  (which  vary  with  the  delicacy 
of  the  lace)  that  hold  the  thread,  each 
child  must  know  how  to  manipulate  the 
long  brass  pins  which  separate  the  vari- 
ous groups  of  bobbins  not  in  actual  use. 
She  learns,  too,  to  roll  each  finished  sec- 
tion of  her  lace  in  blue  paper  and  tuck 
it  carefully  away  in  the  little  drawer 
below  the  upper  part  of  the  cushion;  the 
true  lace-maker  prides  herself  on  the 
snowy  whiteness  of  her  lace,  which  she 
protects  in  every  conceivable  way. 

While  I  was  moving  from  one  to  an- 
other, a  sister  had  gathered  a  group  of 
seven  to  ten  year  olds  nearer  the  stove — 


64  BOBBINS  OP  BELGIUM 

a  company  of  Fra  Angelico  angels  they 
looked,  as  I  bent  over  them  to  watch  their 
little  hands.  They  placed  brass  pins  in 
the  holes  pricked  in  the  pattern  to  hold 
the  rather  coarse  thread,  twisted  first  two 
threads  to  the  right,  then  two  to  the  left, 
then  braided  them  to  form  the  familiar 
hexagon  of  the  Point  de  Paris  mesh. 
When  they  reached  the  pattern,  a  most 
simple  conventional  one,  other  bobbins 
had  to  be  brought  into  play.  They  held 
the  threads  always  from  the  top  of  the 
cushion  vertically  toward  them,  with  the 
seam  edge  of  the  lace  to  the  left  and  the 
border  to  the  right.  Even  these  babies 
had  from  50  to  200  bobbins  to  keep  in 
mind,  rather  long  beech-wood  bobbins, 
these  for  Point  de  Paris,  with  the  thread 
tightly  wound  at  the  top,  and  a  consid- 
erable pear-shaped  bulge  at  the  end. 
Each  lace  is  supposed  to  require  a  par- 
ticular bobbin,  especially  suited  to  the 
weight  of  thread  employed,  but  workers 


WINDING    BOBBINS   FOR    THE   CHILDREN 


TURNHOUT  65 

often  use  them  indifferently.  Some  for- 
tunate ones  pride  themselves  on  their  fine 
ebony  or  ivory  sets.  Of  course,  bobbins 
must  be  constantly  resupplied  with 
thread,  and  in  a  corner  of  the  room  I 
saw  a  white-haired  grandmother  with  her 
devidoir,  or  spindle,  busily  winding 
thread  on  the  bobbins  for  the  children. 
She  made  a  beautiful  picture  tliere  at  her 
wheel  with  a  dozen  little  girls  with  their 
cushions  crowding  near  her.  I  asked  if 
the  beginners  were  able  to  earn  some- 
thing and  found  they  were  making  about 
10  and  15  cents  a  day. 

In  this  model  school,  for  all  children 
under  sixteen  years  of  age  the  lace  work 
alternates  with  regular  lessons,  as  it  should 
of  course,  in  every  school.  Those  above 
that  age  may  give  their  entire  day  to 
the  lace.  The  hours  for  girls  between 
nine  and  thirteen  are :  from  8  to  1 1  o'clock, 
lessons;  from  1:30  to  4  o'clock,  lessons 
again;  and  from  4  to  6:30  o'clock,  lace. 


66  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

This  is  still  a  sadly  long  day  for  growing 
children,  but  it  nevertheless  registers  a 
most  cheering  improvement  over  the  for- 
mer cruelty  of  a  far  longer  day.  It  has 
been  the  Committee's  hope  that  such  a 
system  as  this  might  be  instituted 
throughout  Belgium,  and  that  from  it 
they  might  advance  to  still  better  condi- 
tions. Children  from  thirteen  to  sixteen 
come  at  7:30  o'clock,  make  lace  till  11 130, 
and  again  from  1 130  to  4 :45  o'clock.  From 
5  until  6:30  o'clock  they  have  regular 
school  lessons — one  wonders  how  much 
education  can  be  crowded  into  one  and  a 
half  hours  at  the  end  of  a  day  that  began  at 
7 130  o'clock !  The  girls  over  sixteen  years 
of  age  make  lace  from  7:30  until  6:30 
o'clock.  One  thing  to  remember  always, 
in  looking  at  these  distressing  figures,  is 
the  frequent  number  of  holidays  in  Bel- 
gium; the  children  are  saved  by  their 
numerous  fete  days. 

It  was  not   easy  to  leave   the   tragic 


TURNHOUT  67 

and  marvelous  primary  room;  the  fairy- 
like fingers  and  the  golden  heads  above 
the  cushions.  But  I  had  to  go  on  to 
room  number  one  on  the  ground  floor 
v^^here  there  was  another  Point  de  Paris 
class,  for  girls  about  twelve  years  old.  In 
the  Abbe  Berraly  school  the  girls  must 
pass  through  at  least  three  classes  in 
Point  de  Paris  before  they  proceed  to 
Point  de  Lille,  to  go  on  from  there  to  the 
*'spider-web,"  or  delicate  and  most  diffi- 
cult Malines. 

The  first  striking  difference  between 
this  room  and  the  primary,  was  in  the 
number  of  bobbins  piled  on  the  cushions 
— there  were  hundreds  now  instead  of 
dozens.  The  cushions  were  larger,  too, 
and  most  of  them  were  round,  for  many 
of  the  pupils  were  working  on  collars  and 
doily  and  handkerchief  edgings.  The 
designs  were  already  complicated,  one  of 
them  represented,  for  instance,  the  ani- 
mal symbols  of  the  allied  nations.     This 


68  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

class  promotes  to  the  advanced  class  in 
Point  de  Paris,  where  I  found  several 
cushions  with  over  500  bobbins  heaped 
upon  them,  and  girls  of  fourteen  and  fif- 
teen years  shifting  that  number  with  a 
swiftness  not  to  be  followed. 

Since  the  heavy  rain  was  making  see- 
ing difficult,  the  teachers  moved  a  num- 
ber of  iron  stands  (resembling  umbrella 
stands)  to  various  points  in  the  room, 
placing  on  top  of  each  stand,  in  the  mid- 
dle, a  small  kerosene  lamp,  and,  near  the 
edge,  a  large  globular  carafe,  filled  with 
water.  The  light  from  the  lamp  passes 
through  the  bottle  to  fall  with  concen- 
trated and  magnifying  effect  directly  on 
that  spot  on  the  cushion  where  the  work 
is  in  progress.  The  rack  may  be  turned, 
the  bottle  raised  or  lowered,  and  usually 
four  girls  profit  by  the  light  from  one  lamp, 
It  is  a  picturesque  and  primitive  system, 
which  many  still  prefer  to  the  more  mod- 
ern and  expensive  electricity,  because  it 


TURNHOUT  6d 

is  an  advantage  to  have  the  working  spot 
on  the  cushion  thrown  into  high  rehef, 
while  at  the  same  time  the  bottle  light  is 
softer  and  less  tiring  to  the  eyes  than 
electricity.  These  iron  stands  and  lamps 
were  very  practical  and  satisfactory,  but 
I  have  often  seen,  in  poor  little  rooms, 
the  bottle  set  on  the  table  on  a  rough 
wooden  block,  with  a  rude  oil  dip  in  a 
cup  propped  up  on  bits  of  stick  or  stone 
behind  it  to  lift  it  to  just  the  proper 
height;  as  the  work  progresses,  the  posi- 
tion of  course  must  be  altered. 

While  the  girls  were  pulling  their 
chairs  closer  to  the  bottles  I  talked  with 
the  teachers  about  the  place  of  Point  de 
Paris  in  the  lace  world.  There  is  no  fine 
lace,  they  told  me,  which  is  so  much  in 
demand  to-day  as  Point  de  Paris,  for  no 
lace  so  successfully  combines  durability 
and  beauty.  It  is  more  used  for  dainty 
lingerie  than  any  other  variety.  Paris 
buyers  seem  never  to  be  able  to  secure 


70  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

sufficient  Point  de  Paris,  which  tHo 
it  was  christened  by  that  city  and  was 
largely  produced  there  during  the  17th 
century,  must  now  be  suppHed  by  Bel- 
gium. Its  strength  depends  on  its  solid 
hexagonal  mesh,  always  the  test  of  lace, 
which  is  made  with  eight  cotton  threads, 
usually  of  fairly  coarse  quality.  From 
this  substantial  mesh  may  blossom  a  pat- 
tern of  extreme  grace  and  beauty,  the 
closely  woven  flat  parts  or  toile,  being 
relieved  by  open-work  spaces,  or  jours, 
and  the  whole  design  outlined  and  thus 
thrown  into  a  kind  of  relief  by  a  heavier 
thread.  The  roses  of  the  Queen  design, 
drawn  for  the  Brussels  Committee  by 
Mile.  Brouhon  (who  has  since  died),  is 
one  of  the  loveliest  of  the  recent  ones. 
I  saw,  the  other  day,  a  box  scented  with 
lavender  and  filled  with  rolls  upon  rolls 
of  this  rose  pattern  lace,  ready  for  the 
day  when  a  chateau  can  be  restored,  and 
fine  linen   sheets   and   pillow   slips   with 


TURNHOUT  71 

their  Point  de  Paris   edgings  can  once 
again  be  spread  on  the  beds. 

Point  de  Lille  could  never  be  success- 
fully used  for  either  lingerie  or  table  or 
bed  linen  for  it  is  not  sufficiently  durable. 
In  room  3,  girls  from  fourteen  to  sixteen 
years  were  beginning  to  execute  this  more 
difficult  lace.    Its  clear,  transparent  mesh 
originated  in  the  city  from  which  it  is 
named,  where  in  1788  there  were  as  many 
as   16,000  women   employed  on  it.     Its 
fragility  results  from  the  fact  that  but 
four  threads   (instead  of  the  customary 
eight  of  Point  de  Paris  and  Malines,  and 
of  the  mother  of  them  all,  Valenciennes) 
are  used   in   twisting   and  braiding  the 
meshes.     On   its  light,   clear  mesh,   the 
designs  are  now  often  very  elegant  and 
free,  tho  the  traditional   Point  de  Lille 
edging  has  a  straight  border  and  rather 
rigid  pattern.    They  are  always  outlined 
by  a  heavier  thread,  as  are  the  flowers  of 
the  Point  de  Paris  and  Malines,  but  un- 


nr«  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

like  these  other  laces,  the  Point  de  Lille 
is  characterized  by  little  pois,  or  peas  or 
dots,  scattered  through  the  mesh.  It  is 
sometimes  confused  with  Malines  because 
of  the  transparency  of  its  mesh,  which, 
however,  is  not  so  delicate  as  that  of 
Malines,  nor  so  difficult  to  make,  nor, 
because  of  its  fewer  threads,  so  solid. 

One  of  the  most  popular  and  more 
solid  varieties  of  Point  de  Lille  is  better 
known  as  Point  d'Hollande,  because  it  is 
chiefly  sold  to  the  well-to-do  Dutch  peas- 
ants for  their  handsome  bonnets.  It  is 
wide  and  often  of  sumptuous  design,  a 
sole  branch  or  flower  frequently  furnish- 
ing the  entire  wing  of  a  bonnet. 

In  the  classroom,  I  went  directly  to  a 
(dark-haired  Josephine,  whose  cushion 
seemed  to  hold  the  largest  mounds  of 
bobbins — "Yes,  there  are  over  a  thou- 
sand," she  admitted  shyly  and  smilingly. 
The  directress  came  to  help  her  open  the 
Jittle  drawer  beneath  her  round  cushion. 


K  ^ 


K  P= 


1^.  X 


TURNHOUT  78 

and  to  shake  from  the  blue  paper  a  most 
lovely  wide  scarf  with  a  charming  flower 
design.  "I  began  it  last  January,"  she 
added,  "and  I  hope  to  finish  it  this  Jan- 
uary of  1919."  One  year  with  a  thou- 
sand bobbins,  and  at  best  50  cents  a  day 
for  her  work — which  was  so  much  more 
than  she  could  have  made  before  the  war 
that  she  had  no  thought  of  complaining! 
I  wondered  if  the  woman  who  would 
throw  this  filmy  flower-sown  veil  over  her 
shoulders  would  care  to  know  about  the 
dark-eyed  Josephine  and  her  year  with 
the  1,000  bobbins. 

But  there  is  much  more  beautiful  lace 
than  either  Point  de  Paris  or  Point  de 
Lille  taught  in  the  Turnhout  school.  The 
girls  pass  from  the  Lille  room  to  Malines, 
known  in  the  city  of  its  birth  as  the 
"spider-web  of  Malines."  Nothing  could 
be  more  airy  and  exquisite  than  its  delicate 
hexagonal  mesh,  much  more  difficult  to 
make  than  either  of  the  preceding  varie- 


74  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

ties  because  it  must  be  worked  without 
the  aid  of  pins,  with  only  the  eye  to  guide 
in  securing  the  requisite  uniformity  and 
exactness.  No  lace  demands  greater  skill 
or  greater  patience;  since  in  addition  to 
the  difficulty  of  working  without  support- 
ing pins,  is  the  difficulty  of  handling  the 
extremely  fine  thread  employed.  The 
patterns  are  usually  of  delicate  flowers 
and  leaves,  with  open-work  stitches  in- 
troduced to  add  ever  greater  lightness  to 
the  whole. 

The  dentellieres  in  the  Malines  room 
work  chiefly  on  insertions  and  flounces 
to  be  used  for  handkerchiefs  or  fichus  or 
dainty  blouses,  or  perhaps  for  wedding 
gowns.  The  Committee  has  given  them, 
too,  many  orders  for  inserts  for  table  cen- 
ters or  doilies,  so  exquisite  that  one  feels 
they  should  be  used  only  under  glass. 

Scarcely  an  important  family  in  Bel- 
gium but  treasures  a  bit  of  old  Malines. 
Among  my  rarest  pleasures  were  those  I 


TURNHOUT  76 

enjoyed,  when  the  conversation  turning 
upon  lace,  a  friend  has  said :  "But  would 
you  care  to  see  my  mother's  Malines,  or 
my  great,  great-grandmother's?" — and 
she  has  brought  from  a  brocade  box  a 
filmy,  ivory-colored  collar  or  flounce,  or 
a  scarf  or  bonnet,  all  of  a  breath-taking 
loveliness  and  delicacy  never  to  be  repro- 
duced. I  remember,  too,  a  Christmas 
mass  and  the  marvelous  flounce  that  fell 
from  beneath  the  white  and  gold  chasuble 
worn  by  Cardinal  Mercier  over  the  scarlet 
;of  his  robe. 

It  is  only  in  Turnhout  that  any  con- 
siderable quantity  of  Malines  is  yet  made, 
and  despite  all  the  efforts  of  the  Com- 
mittee and  of  other  lovers  of  beautiful 
lace,  there  is  little  hope  that  it  will  live 
much  longer.  When  the  old  artists,  for 
so  they  should  be  named,  die,  few  young 
women  are  found  willing  still  to  sacrifice 
their  years  to  the  spider-web. 

The   women   of   the   Lace   Committee 


•76  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

believe  there  is  no  future  work  more  im- 
portant than  that  of  improving  the  200 
and  more  lace  schools  of  their  country. 
In  the  lace  normal  school  at  Bruges,  in 
the  national  school  of  design  at  Brussels, 
the  excellent  Needle  Point  school  at  Zele, 
and  in  such  schools  as  this  one  at  Turn- 
hout,  they  see  the  hope  of  the  lace  art; 
they  urge  that  the  Government  increase 
its  subsidies  to  these  and  other  deserving 
institutions.  Education  and  ever  better 
education  of  the  lace-woman  is  their 
watchword. 


II 

COURTRAI 


V 


II 

COURTRAI 

Early  Home  of  Valenciennes 

FOR  years  I  had  heard  of  the  blue 
flax  fields  of  the  valley  of  the  Lys, 
and  of  the  season  between  April  and 
September,  when  along  miles  of  its 
course,  the  river  is  filled  with  boxes  float- 
ing the  finest  linen  fiber  of  the  world, 
the  flax  of  Belgium,  North  France  and 
Holland,  which  can  be  better  prepared 
in  its  waters  than  anywhere  else. 

Unfortunately  I  could  see  it  only  under 
a  January  rain,  but  Monsieur  de  Stoop, 
a  prominent  weaver  of  Courtrai,  the  town 
of  36,000  inhabitants  which  is  the  valley 
center,  made  the  Flanders  fields  bloom 
79 


80  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

again  as  he  described  to  me  the  successive 
steps  which  lead  from  them  to  the  woven 
linen  his  factory  produces — I  should  say, 
produced,  for  the  Germans  left  his  plant, 
along  with  seven  others,  an  utter  ruin. 
He  was  unable  to  explain  and  apparently 
no  analysis  has  yet  determined,  just  why 
the  waters  of  the  Lys  river  surpass  all 
others  in  their  power  to  rot  the  encasing 
straw  and  generally  to  cleanse  the  flax; 
but  one  thing  is  clear,  they  have  estab- 
lished Courtrai  as  a  world  market  for  fine 
raw  linen.  Sometimes  the  stalks  need  be 
floated  only  two  or  three  days,  sometimes 
it  requires  very  much  longer  to  macerate 
them,  the  period  depending  chiefly  on  the 
weather,  and  particularly  on  the  temper- 
ature. 

After  its  soaking  and  cleansing,  the 
linen  fiber  starts  again  on  its  journey, 
this  time  to  the  various  countries  where 
it  is  to  be  made  into  thread  and  woven 
into  tissues.    Much  goes  to  England  and 


COURTRAI  81 

to  Ireland,  to  such  firms  as  Beth  and  Cox. 
From  there  it  returns  to  Belgium  in  the 
form  of  linen  thread  for  fine  laces,  quite 
a  different  variety,  of  course,  from  that 
employed  in  sewing.  Lace  thread,  both 
cotton  and  linen,  may  be  used  for  sewing, 
but  never  sewing-thread  for  good  lace. 
An  outsider  can  scarcely  estimate  the  im- 
portance of  the  quality  of  the  thread  to 
the  lace-maker.  Of  two  skeins  bearing 
the  same  number,  one  may  be  supple  and 
easily  led,  while  the  other  is  brittle  and 
wayward.  We  hear  many  stories  of  how 
women  used  to  spend  their  lives  in  damp 
cellars,  in  order  to  keep  their  thread 
moist  and  soft.  I  have  been  told  several 
times,  for  instance,  that  a  certain  piece 
of  lace  had  been  made  below  ground, 
because  only  there  was  its  marvelous 
technique  possible.  Whatever  the  degree 
of  truth  or  legend  in  these  assertions,  it  is 
known  that  the  rarest  laces  require  cer- 
tain   atmospheric    conditions,    and    are. 


82  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

above  all,  dependent  on  a  superior  fine- 
ness and  pliability  of  the  thread. 

The  English  and  Irish  spinneries  lead 
the  world;  they  produce  most  of  its  lace 
thread.  One  of  them;  the  Coates  firm 
of  Paisley,  has  established  in  Belgium 
branches  in  which  Belgian  capital  is  in- 
terested,— at  Gent  are  the  filteries,  which 
prepare  thread  for  weaving,  and  at  Alost 
and  Ninove  are  the  filatures  or  spinneries 
which  turn  out  the  finished  sewing  and 
embroidery  thread.  The  cottons  and 
linens  of  these  mills  are  too  coarse  for 
the  delicate  laces;  however,  during  a  sin- 
gle war  year,  the  Brussels  Committee  was 
happy  to  be  able  to  buy  from  Alost  as 
much  as  600,000  francs  worth  of  thread. 
By  some  miracle,  the  Ghent  filteries  es- 
caped the  practically  universal  ruin  vis- 
ited on  mills  and  factories,  and  should  be 
operating  before  peace  is  signed,  but  for 
the  spinneries  of  Alost  and  Ninove,  the 
future  is  still  dark. 


COURTRAI  8S 

During  two  years  the  enemy,  feeling 
they  might  one  day  run  the  mills  where 
they  stood,  left  them  intact,  tho  they, 
requisitioned  their  stocks  of  thread.  Then 
as  they  saw  they  might  not  perhaps  be 
able  to  continue  their  beneficent  occupa- 
tion of  Belgium,  even  if  they,  won  thei 
war,  they  began  to  remove  the  mill  ma- 
chinery- to  Germany.  They  were  espe- 
cially ruthless  when  the  mills  were  known 
to  be  of  English  or  French  ownership. 
They  stole  the  secrets  of  the  factories 
and  finally  they  deported  the  workmen. 
These  men  are  scattered  everywhere. 
Even  if  the  machines  of  the  factories 
were  not  completely  destroyed  it  would 
be  impossible  under  a  considerable  time 
to  reassemble  the  skilled  workmen  essen- 
tial to  the  spinning  industry.  The-  Ger- 
mans will  undoubtedly  try  to  capture  the 
trade,  and  to  market  their  goods,  if  they 
must,  through  such  neutral  countries  as 
Denmark  and  Switzerland. 


84  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

When  I  arrived  at  Courtrai,  Monsieur 
and  his  family  were  just  moving  back 
into  the  house  from  which  they  had  been 
ejected.  They  apologized  for  the  room 
they  so  hospitably  offered  me,  in  which 
the  original  bed  had  been  replaced  by  an 
iron  one  they  recognized  as  having  be- 
longed to  an  English  family  of  Courtrai. 
The  brass  trimmings  were  gone,  and  the 
mattress  had  of  course  been  removed,  but 
Madame  had  been  able  to  find  one  stuffed 
with  sea-moss  for  me.  The  curtains  were 
slashed,  blocks  of  wood  nailed  to  the 
once  handsome  walls,  there  were  no 
lights,  no  metal  knobs  or  fixtures  of  any 
kind,  no  service  wires  left.  Below,  the 
cellar  had  been  almost  filled  with  con- 
crete to  provide  the  conqueror  a  safe 
refuge  during  danger  periods.  It  re- 
quires a  special  kind  of  courage  to  take 
up  life  again  in  a  place  like  this,  but  these 
good  people  said:  "We  can  not  complain, 
we  are  so  much  better  oft*  than  others. 


COURTRAI  86 

and  at  least  we  have  saved  our  health; 
with  that  we  can  be  sure  of  being  able  to 
build  again  what  they  have  destroyed." 
From    there    I    went    to    Baron    de 
Bethune,  a  connoisseur  of  laces,  who  had 
before  the  war  opened  a  lace  museum  in 
Courtrai,    chiefly    for    Valenciennes.      I 
found  him  ill  in  a  little  house  in  the  town ; 
he  had  long  before  been  driven  from  his 
chateau  in  the  suburbs.     His  sister,  who 
had  with  great  difficulty  made  her  way 
from  Louvain,  received  me  with  apolo- 
gies  in   the   midst   of    a   heterogeny   of 
boxes   and   packages,    the    few    personal 
possessions  they  had  gathered  together  in 
the   hope   of   some   day  having   a   home 
again.     I  was  not  to  see  the  old  Valen- 
ciennes and  other  specimens  of  the  fa- 
mous lace  days  of  Courtrai;  fortunately 
for  his  museum,  Monsieur  had  succeeded 
in  getting  them  to  Brussels  where  they 
were  still,  to  my  personal  regret,  hidden 
away.     However,   I  was  not   surprized, 


86  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

for  I  had  been  unable  before  starting  for 
Flanders  to  see  the  celebrated  collection 
of  the  Cinquantenaire  Museum  at  Brus- 
sels, for  that,  too,  had  been  successfully 
secreted.  Museums  are  slow  in  rehang- 
ing  their  treasures.  Even  tho  the  pres- 
ence of  the  three  neutral  Ministers,  the 
Spanish,  American  and  Dutch,  in  the  cap- 
ital, was  supposed  to  be  a  guaranty  of 
protection  to  the  national  collections,  and 
undoubtedly  it  was  only  their  presence 
that  prevented  in  Belgium  what  hap- 
pened to  the  Museums  of  Northern 
France,  the  Belgians  with  unwearying 
ingenuity  concealed  what  they  could. 
Whenever  I  hear  of  hidden  laces,  I  am 
reminded  of  a  morning  at  Malines  and  a 
sad  little  basket  containing  a  fine  collec- 
tion of  old  Malines  lace,  I  saw  exhumed. 
It  had  been  buried  deep  in  a  box,  along 
with  the  family  silver,  and  as  the  daugh- 
ter of  the  mother  who  had  worn  it  took 
its  once  lovely   flowers   and   webs,   now 


COURTRAI  87 

gray  and  earth-stained,  between  her  fin- 
gers, they  powdered  to  dust. 

Monsieur  suggested  that  I  see  Mile. 
Mullie,  a  leading  dealer  of  Courtrai,  who 
still  handles  a  large  output  of  Valen- 
ciennes; tho  Courtrai,  which  was  once 
a  brilliant  production  center,  is  no  longer 
of  great  importance.  After  the  French 
Revolution,  which  killed  Valenciennes- 
making  in  its  original  home,  it  migrated 
to  other  parts  of  Northern  France,  and 
to  the  two  Flanders;  to  Ypres,  where  it 
enjoyed  an  especially  happy  development, 
to  Bruges,  Ghent,  Dixmude,  Furnes, 
Menin,  Nieuport,  Poperinghe  and  else- 
where. For  a  long  time  Ghent  led  all 
these,  with  over  5,000  workers  listed  in 
1756.  But  starvation  wages  and  success- 
ful imitations  have  told  against  this,  as 
against  other  laces.  Nevertheless,  in  the 
census  of  1896,  Bruges  was  still  credited 
with  2,000  Valenciennes  workers,  and 
Poperinghe  with   500,  while  there  were 


88  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

scattered  groups  of  considerable  impor- 
tance in  a  great  number  of  the  villages  of 
Western,  and  some  of  Eastern  Flanders. 

Courtrai  and  the  nearby  villages  where 
the  lace  is  actually  made,  still  stand, 
tho  many  buildings  have  been  de- 
stroyed, but  while  her  people  were  not 
forced  to  become  refugees,  lace-making 
was  seriously  interrupted;  workers  were 
evicted  from  their  homes  and  their 
schools.  And  they  suffered  further  be- 
cause there  was  scarcely  any  thread  left, 
the  dealers  often  asking  as  much  as  20 
cents  for  %  of  a  yard  of  lace  thread, 
about  the  previous  value  of  the  same 
length  in  finished  lace.  Under  these  con- 
ditions it  was  especially  easy  to  see  the 
importance  of  the  efforts  of  the  Brussels 
Lace  Committee,  which  furnished  thread 
at  the  normal  price,  and  gave  more  for 
the  lace  than  was  ever  offered  before 
the  war. 

Unfortunately    the    German    facteurs 


COURTRAI  89 

(agents  for  lace  dealers)  worked  clev- 
erly here,  too,  as  in  other  districts.  They 
had  always  plenty  of  requisitioned  thread 
to  offer,  and  succeeded  in  buying  con- 
siderable lace,  for  which  they  offered 
high  and  varying  prices. 

The  younger  women  of  the  Courtrai 
region  have  been  rapidly  giving  up  Val- 
enciennes to  make  Cluny,  which  pays  bet- 
ter. A  Valenciennes  beginner,  for  ex- 
ample, must  work  a  year  as  an  appren- 
tice, during  which  time  she  is  able  to  earn 
scarcely  more  than  five  cents  a  day.  The 
wages  of  the  good  workers  have  ad- 
vanced, but  unless  they  can  be  increased 
even  more,  there  are  few  who  will  con- 
tinue to  make  this  difficult  lace. 

After  60  years'  experience  in  lace,  and 
latterly  she  has  employed  1,000  women. 
Mile.  Mullie  says  that  one  is  fortunate, 
among  5,000  workers,  to  find  five  who  can 
execute  a  sample  from  a  drawing  not 
already   interpreted   or   pricked    for   the 


90  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

worker.  Before  the  war  there  were  two 
good  piqueuses  in  Ypres  to  whom  Cour- 
trai  sent  her  difficult  patterns,  but  only 
one  of  these  still  lives. 

In  peace-time  the  greater  part  of  this 
Courtrai  lace  goes  to  Paris  (some  is  sent 
to  New  York),  which  is  all  one  needs  to 
say  in  tribute  to  its  pattern  and  its  qual- 
ity. Paris  knows  lace  better  than  any 
other  city  in  the  world;  she  accepts  only 
the  best.  We  were  talking  of  the  60  per 
cent,  duty  the  United  States  Government 
levies  on  imported  laces,  and  the  harm  it 
works  to  the  Belgian  industry.  "That  is 
our  greatest  discouragement,  but  there 
are  other  Government  stupidities,"  Mile. 
Mullie  smiled.  ''France,  for  instance, 
charges  io>^  francs  on  a  kilo  of  Valen- 
ciennes, and  the  same  amount  on  an  equal 
weight  of  Cluny;  the  Valenciennes  may 
be  worth  several  thousand,  and  the  Cluny 
three  or  four  francs!" 

The  true  old  Valenciennes  mesh,  called 


COURTRAI  91 

"Rond,"  is  still  made  at  Courtrai,  as 
well  as  at  Bruges;  the  modern  Valen- 
ciennes commonly  has  a  square  mesh, 
which  is  preferred  by  many  connoisseurs, 
since  it  is  more  transparent  and  sets  the 
flowers  off  more  strikingly.  "Whether 
or  not  you  prefer  it  to  the  square,  you 
must  see  the  traditional  round  Valen- 
ciennes mesh,"  Mile.  Mullie  said,  and 
we  started  off  in  the  rain  for  a  group  of 
tiny  brick  houses,  the  Gottshuisen  (God's 
houses)  which  the  city  furnishes  free  to 
certain  old  people. 

Before  we  reached  the  first,  I  saw  two 
white  heads  near  a  window,  bending  over 
cushions;  and  once  inside,  on  those  cush- 
ions, lengths  of  snowy  Valenciennes  of 
the  old  round  mesh,  of  an  admirable  reg- 
ularity and  loveliness.  These  two  women 
were  both  over  70  years  old,  and  they 
sat  before  their  bobbins,  twisting  and 
braiding  the  eight  threads  of  the  mesh  as 
they  had  twisted  and  braided  them  for 


92  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

over  a  half  century,  and  still  cheerfully 
hoping  that  they  might  some  day  win 
more  than  15  or  20  cents  a  day  for  their 
work.  "Now  we  must  have  more,"  they 
said  gently,  ''because  thread  and  oil  are 
so  much  more  expensive  than  they  were 
before  the  war." 

In  the  next  house,  the  old  woman 
whose  sister  was  ill  could  afford  no  light 
at  all;  when  dusk  fell  she  had  to  leave 
her  bobbin  mounds  and  her  mesh  and 
flowers  and  go  to  bed — what  else  could 
she  do  without  coal  or  oil? 

It  was  the  last  day  of  1918,  and  I 
decided  that  Mrs.  Bayard  Henry  of  Phil- 
adelphia, who  had  sent  me  a  little  money 
to  use  as  I  chose,  would  be  happy  to  give 
to  these  sweet,  faithful  women  and  their 
thirteen  neighbors,  candles  and  oil  as 
hope  symbols  for  the  New  Year.  I  left 
her  gift  with  Mile.  Mullie. 

It  was  already  very  late,  and  I  had 
not  time  to  go  to  Wevelghem  and  Gulleg- 


COURTRAI  93 

hem,  two  of  the  most  important  lace- 
villages  contributing  to  Courtrai.  Mile. 
Mullie  was  facing  the  future  with  cour- 
age. "I  am  sure,"  she  said,  "that  Peat, 
from  whom  I  have  bought  thread  for 
forty  years,  will  not  forget  me,  and  that  I 
may  be  able  to  count  on  a  shipment  from 
England  at  a  just  price  as  soon  as  any- 
thing can  come  through.  That  I  have 
been  cut  off  during  four  years  will  make 
no  difference.  I  shall  write,  too,  to  a 
friend  in  France,  and  from  Puy  I  may 
have  a  few  skeins.  The  question  of  pins 
and  bobbins  is  serious — they  seem  to  have 
disappeared,  and  one  can  not  start  a 
worker  on  less  than  a  dozen  bobbins. 
Those  I  have  thus  far  succeeded  in  find- 
ing cost  95  centimes  the  dozen,  as  against 
the  28  centimes  of  pre-war  times.  There 
seem  literally  to  be  no  pins.  However, 
'despite  everything,  I,  at  least,  hope  to  see 
my  thousand  women  at  some  not  too  dis- 
tant time  again  busy  over  their  cushions. 


94  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

A  few  have  already  sought  me  out  to 
let  me  know  they  are  ready,  waiting  only 
for  the  precious  thread.  I  regret  infi- 
nitely the  passing  of  the  fine  'Val,'  but  we 
shall  continue  to  produce  as  much  as  we 
can,  and  at  any  rate  we  shall  try  un- 
ceasingly to  raise  the  standard  of  the 
Clunys  and  Torchons." 


Ill 

THOUROUT  —  THIELT 
WYNGHENE 


95 


Ill 

THOUROUT— THIELT— 
WYNGHENE 

In  the  Important  Bobbin  Lace  Area 

ON  a  spring-like  Saturday  in  early 
January,  I  left  Bruges  by  the 
Thourout  road  for  Thielt.  As  I  turned 
beyond  the  Porte,  I  found  myself 
speeding  toward  the  great  arms  of  one 
of  those  Dutch  windmills  that  so  fre- 
quently, in  the  lowlands,  close  the  long 
vista.  The  farther  I  rode  into  the  Thou- 
rout region,  the  more  it  seemed  the  love- 
liest bit  of  Western  Flanders  I  had  yet 
seen.  The  gentle  outlines  of  the  low  red 
brick  farmhouses  followed  with  satisfy- 
ing   harmony    the    landscape    contours. 

Farm  succeeded  farm  in  swift  succession, 
97 


98  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

small  farms,  where  every  square  foot  of 
soil  was  green  with  sprouting  grain  or 
vegetables,  and  in  the  morning  sunlight 
the  thickly  sown  cottages  shone  like 
jewels  on  the  plain. 

Pink  and  white  geraniums  blossomed 
behind  many  of  the  quaint  windows,  and 
I  knew  that  near  them  grandmothers,  or 
mothers,  or  daughters  (or  possibly  all 
three  together)  were  sitting  before  their 
cushions,  and  from  pin  to  pin  were  twist- 
ing and  braiding  Cluny  and  Duchesse, 
the  characteristic  laces  of  this  section. 
This  was  an  excellent  day  for  lace-mak- 
ing with  its  sunshine  of  summer. 

To  the  south  and  east  of  the  badly 
shelled  town  of  Thourout,  I  visited  the  dis- 
tricts of  Iseghem,  Thielt  and  Wynghene, 
all  celebrated  for  their  guipures.  Guipure, 
a  rather  vague  commercial  term  covering 
two  widely  different  groups  of  lace,  may 
be  loosely  defined  as  bobbin  lace  without 
a  mesh  base.    One  group  of  guipures  in- 


THOUROUT— THIELT— WYNGHENE  99 

eludes  the  Clunys  (named  after  the  Cluny 
museum  in  Paris  because  they  employ 
many  old  Gothic  designs)  which  are 
made  in  one  length  or  piece.  They 
closely  resemble  the  more  common  Tor- 
chons, surpassing  them,  however,  in  fine- 
ness and  firmness  of  execution,  and  in 
brilliancy  of  design — the  distinguishing 
connecting  bars  of  Cluny  often  throw  the 
figures  into  conspicuous  relief.  While 
this  one-piece  lace  is  usually  made  of  the 
coarser  threads,  fine  linen  or  cotton,  or 
even  silk  thread,  is  also  employed.  In 
the  second  group  of  guipures  are  those 
made  in  separate  small  bits,  or  details, 
which  are  afterward  joined  to  make  the 
flounce  or  piece,  the  most  common  of 
these  varieties  being  Flanders  and 
Duchesse.  In  the  schools  of  Thielt  and 
Wynghene  all  the  kinds  are  taught.  Be- 
cause they  are  made  of  coarser  thread 
and  therefore  more  quickly  than  such 
laces  as  Valenciennes  or  Needle  Point, 


100  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

are  less  taxing  to  the  eyes,  and  pay  bet- 
ter, these  guipures  have  gained  ground 
in  almost  every  lace  center  in  Belgium, 
and  often  threaten  the  very  existence  of 
the  finer  laces.  If  it  had  not  been  for 
the  leadership  of  the  ''Amies  de  la  Den- 
telle,"  of  a  few  of  the  more  intelligent 
and  disinterested  dealers,  and  above  all 
of  certain  convents  to  whom  Belgium 
owes  the  preservation  of  many  of  her 
finest  designs  and  varieties,  it  is  a  ques- 
tion if  any  but  the  few  remaining  old 
women,  who  for  forty  or  fifty  years  have 
preferred  to  follow  one  pattern,  would 
still  produce  the  old  meshes  and  points. 
Much  hope  now  centers  in  the  corrective 
influence  of  the  recently  founded  Normal 
School  at  Bruges  and  of  the  other  schools 
of  Belgium,  but,  despite  all  the  efforts  of 
these  combined  groups,  delicate  laces  like 
the  Malines  have  been  fast  disappearing. 
The  little  farmhouse,  if  one  can  call 
two  rooms  a  house,  I  visited  on  the  edge 


THOUROUT-THIELT-WYNGHENE  101 

of  Thielt  demonstrated  clearly  what  is 
happening.  It  was  Saturday  afternoon 
and  the  mother  of  the  large  family  of 
boys  at  play  on  the  neat  brick  path  out- 
side, was  scrubbing  the  tiled  floor,  mov- 
ing the  small  baskets  of  potatoes  and 
heaps  of  tobacco  leaves  and  sabots  and 
the  winter  sled  from  place  to  place  as 
she  proceeded.  The  socks  to  be  darned, 
each  already  a  fantastic  patch-work,  were 
piled  on  the  window-sill,  where  there  was 
room  beside  for  a  geranium  and  a  fern. 
The  stove  and  the  table  were  also  crowded 
into  this,  the  general  living-room,  which 
despite  all  attempts  to  arrange  things, 
boasted  scarcely  one  unincumbered  foot 
of  floor  space.  However,  over  near  the 
window  with  its  two  plants,  were  the 
customary  chair  and  the  cushion,  and  the 
girl  of  sixteen,  absorbed  in  her  lace, 
quite  oblivious  of  the  water  her  mother 
was  splashing  about  her  feet. 

The    adjoining    room    was    similarly 


102  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

crowded;  it  had  to  serve  as  bedroom  for 
this  large  family.  There  was  the  mantel- 
piece with  the  familiar  row  of  bright 
plates  and  vases, — the  place  where  the 
family's  art  sense  finds  concentrated  ex- 
pression. Fortunately,  this  room,  too, 
had  a  window  with  other  plants,  and  be- 
fore it  sat  the  grandmother  in  her  black 
cap  and  shawl,  who,  as  I  entered,  was  just 
slipping  her  battered  eye-glasses  into  the 
little  side  drawer  beneath  her  cushion. 
She  smiled  a  friendly  greeting,  and  un- 
covered her  lace,  a  filmy  flounce  of  Valen- 
ciennes about  four  inches  wide,  firm 
and  regular,  and  of  a  good  old  design. 
She  had  been  making  Valenciennes  all 
her  life;  she  would  make  it  to  the  end. 
She  was  delighted  to  show  me  how  she 
twisted  four  threads  to  form  one  side  of 
the  hexagon  of  the  mesh,  and  four  to 
form  the  opposite,  and  the  union  points 
where  the  eight  met.  Then  she  held  up 
a  length  of  her  lace  and  told  us  that  a 


THOUROUT-THIELT-WYNGHENE  103 

facteur  (neighborhood  buyer  for  a  large 
business  house)  had  been  there  just  be- 
fore we  arrived,  to  try  to  buy  her  flounce 
at  nine  francs  the  aune,  which  would  be 
roughly,  about  $2.50  a  meter.  The  com- 
mittee has  been  giving  her  19  fr.  50  c. 
($3.90)  for  the  same  amount,  and  she 
asked  anxiously,  tho  still  smilingly,  if  she 
might  not  continue  to  hope  for  the  com- 
mittee price,  even  tho  the  war  had  stopt. 
It  is  pathetic,  day  after  day,  to  hear  that 
question  repeated,  and  not  yet  to  be  cer- 
tain of  the  answer.  However,  one  can  al- 
ways reply  truthfully,  that  the  women  of 
the  "Friends  of  the  Lace"  will  work  un- 
ceasingly not  only  to  hold  wages  where 
they  are,  but  to  advance  them. 

I  turned  from  this  delicate  lace  to  the 
granddaughter's  cushion — she  was  mak- 
ing guipure  de  Cluny,  of  coarse  linen 
thread.  Marie's  pattern  happened  to  be 
a  good  one  and  she  was  working  swiftly 
and   evenly,   sure  of  a  fair  day's  wage. 


104  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

Here,  then,  was  a  suggestive  contrast, 
and  however  one  may  regret  it,  it  exists 
in  the  large  majority  of  lace-making 
households  in  Belgium,  and  is  only  to  be 
expected.  It  is  but  the  deserved  penalty 
of  a  past  and  present  economic  blindness 
or  callousness.  Where  they  are  not  mak- 
ing Cluny,  the  younger  women  of  this  dis- 
trict give  their  time  to  ordinary  varieties 
of  guipure  which  they  call  Bruges  and 
Milan,  or  Point  de  Bruges,  and  Point 
de  Milan. 

While  I  had  been  watching  the  Valen- 
ciennes and  Cluny,  the  mother  of  the 
household,  who  had  the  mop  of  fuzzy 
dark  red  hair  often  seen  in  this  region, 
had  hurried  her  scrubbing  to  an  end,  and 
wiping  her  hands  on  her  blue  apron,  was 
ready  to  uncover  her  own  cushion.  I 
looked  at  the  chapped,  rough  skin  and 
the  hands  used  to  pulling  weeds  and  dig- 
ging potatoes  and  scrubbing,  and  realized 
that  they  could  not  possibly  hold  a  piece 


BODBTX     LACES 

(1)    Torchon        (2)    Cluny       (3)    Old    Flemish      (4)     Binche 


TABLK  CLOTH    SHOWING  ARMS  OF  THE  ALLIES 

Cut  linen  with  squares  of  Venise  surrounded  by  filet  and   cluny. 
Venise  made  with  the   needle,   clunv   with   bobbins 


THOUROUT-THIELT-WYNGHENE  106 

of  fine  sewing — the  thread  would  catch 
with  every  stitch — and  yet  that  she  could 
turn  from  her  scrubbing-brush  to  the 
little  wooden  bobbins  (her  fingers  need 
not  touch  the  thread)  and  proceed  with- 
out difficulty  on  a  snowy  bit  of  Valen- 
ciennes— for  happily  she  was  following 
her  mother  in  Valenciennes. 

There  are  three  schools  in  Thielt,  of 
which  the  convent  schools  de  la  Charite 
and  de  TEsperance  are  the  more  im- 
portant. I  went  first  to  the  Convent  de 
la  Charite,  with  Mile,  van  der  Graeht, 
who  has  throughout  the  war  been  devoted 
to  the  workers  and  the  lace.  Tho  Thielt 
lay  in  the  danger  zone,  she  refused  to 
choose  a  safer  city,  remaining  to  share 
the  work  of  her  father,  who  added  to 
his  arduous  duties  as  administrator  of 
the  arrondisement,  those  of  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  Brussels  Lace  Committee. 
Two  weeks  before  the  end,  however,  the 
Germans  drove  these  patriots  from  their 


106  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

house  (three  bombs  from  AlHed  aero- 
planes had  already  fallen  on  it)  and  they 
were  denied  the  experience  they  had 
been  waiting  for  throughout  all  the 
years,  that  of  seeing  the  Allied  soldiers 
march  into  Thielt.  One  of  the  Germans 
was  frank  enough  to  tell  them  that  they 
were  being  forced  away  chiefly  to  pre- 
vent their  "assisting"  at  that  deliverance. 
Immediately  after  the  armistice  they 
returned,  and  installed  themselves  com- 
fortably once  more  on  the  first  floor  of 
their  almost  roofless  house.  When  I 
arrived  they  had  not  yet  come  in  from 
their  first  inspection  trip  of  the  com- 
munes just  behind  the  lines,  and  I  was 
welcomed  by  pretty,  brown-haired  Flavia 
and  her  six-year-old  Albert.  Flavia's 
husband  had  been  killed  at  the  front  dur- 
ing the  first  months  of  the  war,  and  she 
had  served  in  this  household  throughout 
all  its  terrible  duration.  As  I  looked  from 
the  windows  of  the  drawing-room,  still 


THOUROUT— THIELT-WYNGHENE  107 

intact,  across  the  rear  garden,  to  the 
mass  of  wreckage  that  was  once  the  neigh- 
boring house,  I  understood  the  feehng 
of  the  impotence  of  all  effort  produced 
by  the  casualness  of  these  bombs,  that 
spare  here  to  strike  there,  and  why  in 
the  war  one  inevitably  becomes  a  fatalist. 
And  as  I  looked  across  the  garden,  Flavia 
told  me  something  of  her  experience  with 
the  thirteen  Germans  who  took  over  the 
house  when  they  drove  her  master  out 
and  of  how  whenever  the  shelling  was 
severe  they  ran  to  the  cellars,  and  several 
times  tried  to  persuade  her  to  go  with 
them  but  she  always  refused.  "I  pre- 
ferred," she  said,  "to  die  alone  with  my 
little  boy  in  the  open,  to  risking  being 
killed  with  them  in  the  cellar."  On  Sun- 
day, October  13,  between  11  and  2  o'clock, 
sixty  shells  fell  on  Thielt,  and  all  day 
Monday  and  the  following  days  they 
continued  to  fall,  until  on  Saturday  the 
19th,  the  French  marched  into  the  town. 


109  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

To  add  to  the  horror  of  this  period,  peo- 
ple were  dying  in  large  numbers  of  in- 
fluenza. Flavia  told  me  of  the  street- 
sweeper  who  died  at  the  corner  with  her 
broom  in  her  hand.  By  some  miracle  she 
and  her  little  boy  escaped  both  shell  and 
pestilence,  and  when  Monsieur  and  his 
daughter  returned  they  found  her  scrub- 
bing and  restoring  as  best  she  could  after 
the  flight  of  the  enemy.  This  was  one  of 
the  centers  where  during  the  four  terror- 
years  a  bright  beacon  burned  for  all 
the  surrounding  territory,  for  it  was  here 
that  the  people  of  the  villages  and  the 
convents  could  bring  their  laces  for  the 
committee,  knowing  they  would  be  ac- 
cepted and  paid  for.  In  1916,  the  Baron 
van  der  Graeht  was  encouraging  the  work 
in  no  less  than  seventeen  communes  and 
of  as  many  as  3,500  lace-workers.  Flavia 
smiled  as  she  remembered  something— 
"What  good  luck,  there  will  be  a  sister 
coming  this  very  day  about  2  o'clock,  with 


THOUROUT-THIELT-WYNGHENE  109 

her  laces."  As  she  said  this,  the  door 
opened — father  and  daughter  were  back 
from  their  pony-cart  expedition  to  the 
front-Hnes. 

Monsieur  was  still  visibly  moved  by 
what  he  had  seen,  even  after  his  own  four 
years'  experience.  ''Madame,"  he  said, 
"I  can  not  describe  my  emotion  on  going 
about  in  those  little  shattered  villages 
just  behind  the  lines,  where  the  women 
have  insisted  on  remaining,  and  where 
day  by  day,  and  year  after  year,  they 
have  sat  calmly  before  their  cushions 
making  lace,  while  the  shells  burst  before 
and  behind  them.  After  such  a  victory 
as  theirs,  the  lace  industry  of  Belgium 
must  live." 

Mademoiselle  gave  me  the  list  of  the 
badly  destroyed  villages,  and  then  the 
names  of  those  which  had  suffered  less 
and  that,  with  Thielt,  produced  the  most 
lace.  Among  them  were  Pittham  and 
Ardois  (which  specializes  in  old  Bruges)  ; 


110  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

Ruysselede  (with  an  excellent  school  for 
Valenciennes),  Aerseele,  and  Maria  Loop. 
Thielt,  itself,  had  at  the  beginning  of 
19 1 9  about  300  workers,  of  whom  a  hun- 
dred were  in  the  school  of  the  convent 
de  I'Esperance,  and  about  60  in  the  Con- 
vent de  la  Charite.  There  had  been  times 
of  great  discouragement;  in  one  par- 
ticularly dark  hour  in  191 7  many  of  the 
workers  had  turned  back  to  the  old 
facteurs,  or  village  agents,  for  help,  and 
unfortunately  some  of  these  sold  to  the 
Germans,  who  were  constantly  trying  to 
win  them  by  offering  large  sums  for  their 
laces.  Since  he  was  under  no  obligation 
to  turn  over  a  fixt  wage  to  the  workers, 
the  facteur  might  reap  any  profit  he 
could  secure. 

We  abandoned  this  unpleasant  subject 
to  talk  of  the  schools,  the  hope  of  the 
future,  and  after  lunch  I  went  with  Mile, 
to  visit  one  of  these,  the  Convent  de  la 
Charite,  on  the  edge  of  the  town,  with  its 


THOUROUT— THIELT— WYNGHENE  111 

60  girls,  who  have  suppHed  the  committee 
with  much  old  Flanders  and  Cluny.  Even 
tho  this  was  a  Saturday  afternoon  in 
winter,  45  of  the  60  chairs  were  occupied 
by  girls  between  12  and  16.  One  rarely 
finds  a  girl  over  18  in  the  schools;  once 
she  has  learned  her  trade,  she  prefers  to 
work  at  home  with  the  mother  and  grand- 
mother. 

Unfortunately  in  this,  which  is  con- 
sidered a  "good"  school  for  Flanders,  I 
found  the  longest  hours  I  had  yet  met, 
that  is,  summer  hours.  In  winter,  because 
of  the  poor  light,  they  are  shorter.  It 
seems  unbelievable,  but  the  sisters  told 
me  that  in  summer  the  children  come  at 
5:30  o'clock  and  work  until  8  at  night 
— with  only  three  half-hours  for  recrea- 
tion— one  at  8.30  o'clock,  one  at  12,  and 
one  at  4.  A  day  of  13  hours  for  growing 
children,  and  girls  who  are  maturing! 
It  is  such  cruel  conditions  as  these  that 
the   Committee  have  done  their  best  to 


lis  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

ameliorate.  In  this  case,  tho  the  hours 
are  still  criminal,  the  wages  have  been 
improved. 

However,  "improved  wages"  leave 
much  still  to  be  fought  for.  I  talked 
with  a  girl  of  twelve  in  the  front  row,  an 
apprentice,  and  found  that  she  earns  be- 
tween 40  and  50  centimes  a  day,  or  about 
10  cents  for  her  13  hours'  labor,  which 
tho  it  is  almost  double  what  she  could 
have  earned  before  the  war,  is  neverthe- 
less only  10  cents  per  day.  The  Com- 
mittee was  able  to  add  the  war-time  sub- 
sidy of  20  per  cent,  to  this.  Naturally, 
the  learner  can  not  yet  make  what  is 
called  good  lace,  and  unfortunately  her 
parents  are  often  only  too  content  to  have 
her  bring  home  10  cents  a  day.  The 
older,  more  experienced  girls,  were  earn- 
ing from  one  to  two  francs  a  day,  or  from 
20  to  40  cents,  that  is,  on  a  summer's  day 
or  full  day. 

Monsieur  told  me  later  that  in  his  re- 


THOUROUT— THIELT— WYNGHENE  113 

gion  if  the  wage  of  the  good  worker  can 
be  raised  to  50  cents  per  day,  she  will 
be  able  to  live,  and  will  be  content  to 
remain  at  home  before  her  lace  cushion 
rather  than  to  go  to  the  shoe  and  cotton 
factories  of  Thielt. 

The  advanced  pupils  were  eager  to  un- 
cover their  treasure.  Nearly  all  of  them 
had  protected  their  round  cushions  with  a 
circular  piece  of  thick  blue  glazed  paper, 
with  a  hole  in  the  middle.  Through  the 
hole  they  worked  with  their  rather  heavy 
cherry  wood  bobbins,  on  the  meshless 
guipures  of  Cluny  and  Bruges  and  Flan- 
ders, which  this  school  prefers.  Several 
were  finishing  the  collar  and  cuff  sets  of 
rather  coarse  but  pretty  Bruges  with  its 
characteristic  rose  and  trefoil,  seen  so 
commonly  in  shop  windows,  and  which 
are  especially  effective  when  worn  with 
cotton  or  linen  frocks.  The  Guipure  de 
Flandres  pupils  were  making  square  in- 
sets for  table  and  tray-cloths  of  simple, 


114  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

geometric  designs.  Two  girls  were  at 
work  on  what  they  called  Guipure  de 
Milan,  of  a  wide  spreading  branch  and 
flower  pattern. 

However,  the  most  interesting  lace 
was  not  the  guipure  but  the  Point  de 
Flandres  or  Old  Flanders,  with  its  elab- 
orate mesh  base,  just  now  experiencing 
an  interesting  and  encouraging  revival, 
in  which  the  zealous  Baron  van  der 
Graeht  felt  Thielt  should  assist.  A  half- 
dozen  older  girls  were  executing  doily 
and  table  center  rounds  in  this  lace,  after 
the  Committee's  very  popular  Swan  pat- 
tern. They  were  using  a  fairly  coarse 
linen  thread,  and  working  the  rich,  solid 
mesh  with  eight  bobbins.  "Whoever 
would  make  the  Old  Flanders  mesh  must 
be  willing  to  play  a  game  of  patience," 
Madame  had  once  said  to  me.  The  dull, 
plain  woven  parts  of  the  pattern  are 
brilliantly  outlined  by  a  still  coarser 
thread,  and  in  the  "jours"  or  open-work 


THOUROUT— THIELT— WYNGHENE  115 

spaces  are  the  much  loved  snow-balls 
characteristic  of  Binche  lace.  Because  of 
its  combined  strength  and  beauty,  there 
could  hardly  be  a  more  successful  lace 
for  general  use  than  this  Old  Flanders, 
sometimes  called  Antik. 

While  it  was  once  the  most  generally 
made  and  most  celebrated  of  Flemish 
bobbin  laces  (it  was  known  in  every  part 
of  Flanders  in  1500),  it  had  been  al- 
most forgotten  for  generations,  but  even 
tho  it  has  been  little  remembered  for 
some  time,  Old  Flanders  may  be  said 
never  to  have  died.  In  certain  regions, 
that  of  Antwerp  for  instance,  it  is  found 
continuously  on  the  garments  of  priests. 
It  is  the  lace  that  remained  always  at  the 
base  and  from  which  the  other  bobbin 
laces,  from  time  to  time,  sprang.  It  is 
to  be  hoped  that  the  Committee's  laudable 
effort  to  revive  it  will  bear  increasing  re- 
wards. 

Tho  they  could  understand  no  French, 


116  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

and  I  knew  only  a  few  words  of  Flemish, 
these  little  and  big  girls  found  much 
amusement  in  my  visit,  and  in  my  ina- 
bility to  follow  their  swift  fingers.  These 
were  fingers  accustomed,  too,  to  weed  the 
fields  and  to  dig  potatoes,  for  there  is 
practically  no  lace  made  here  during  the 
weeks  of  August  and  September  when 
the  potato-crop  is  gathered.  The  Sisters 
of  Charity,  teachers  in  this  school,  were 
poor  themselves,  as  their  surroundings 
testified.  They  had  no  fine  carved  oak 
armoire  for  their  laces,  but  brought  from 
some  safe  place  a  tin  box,  like  an  ordi- 
nary bread-box,  in  which  were  the  dainty 
white  packets  ready  to  be  sent  to  the 
Committee  at  Brussels.  As  they  were 
exhibiting  piece  after  lovely  piece,  they 
unfolded  the  swan  pattern  doily  rounds 
of  Old  Flanders,  and  after  a  moment's 
hesitation.  Sister  A.  ventured,  "There  is 
one  thing  you  might  do  for  us,  Madame; 
when  you  return  to  Brussels,  could  you 


THOUROUT— THIELT— WYNGHENE  117 

not  tell  the  Committee  that  while  the 
small  swan  doily  rounds  are  sufficiently 
paid,  this  large  centerpiece  round  is  not? 
It  is  our  fault  in  estimating;  we  did  not 
realize  how  long  it  would  take  to  make 
it."  I  could  not  resist  teasing  them  a 
little  and  replied  that  I  should  be  de- 
lighted to  carry  the  message  were  it  not 
for  the  fact  that  it  was  precisely  this  set 
of  swan  doilies  (as  it  was)  that  the  Com- 
mittee had  given  me  for  Christmas. 
"Should  you  like  me  to  tell  them,"  I 
asked,  ''that  they  had  not  paid  enough 
for  my  present?"  They  were  covered 
with  confusion,  as  I  expected  they  would 
be,  and  then  how  they  laughed,  those 
frail  little  sisters.  ''Mais,  Madame,  that 
would  indeed  be  difficult;  we  will  write; 
we  had  forgotten.  Non,  Madame,  you 
certainly  could  not  tell  them  that!  But 
we  can  write  letters  now  whenever  we 
wish — can  we  not?    One  loses  the  habit 


118  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

in  four  years."  And  then  they  laughed 
again  all  together. 

It  was  already  late  when  I  reached 
Wynghene.  The  shell-pitted  roads  of 
western  Flanders  had  made  all  my  travel- 
ing difficult  and  I  could  not  see  Mile. 
Slock,  one  of  the  rare  lace  dealers  who 
has  looked  beyond  her  immediate  purse 
and  has  taken  time  to  revive  old  models 
and  invent  new  ones,  seeking  in  every 
way  to  raise  the  standard  of  the  present 
production  in  all  her  region,  which  is 
chiefly  devoted  to  Cluny.  I  had  not  time 
to  stop  in  the  village,  but  hurried  on  be- 
yond it  to  a  cheerful  red  brick  manor 
house  set  in  a  forest,  the  home  of  the 
Burgomaster  of  Wynghene,  whose  wife 
has  been  the  untiringly  devoted  repre- 
sentative of  the  Committee  for  this  sec- 
tion. 

As  we  sat  at  tea  together,  near  the  con- 
servatory windows,  where  we  could  look 
through  the  naked  garden  trees  across  a 


THOUROUT— THIELT— WYNGHENE  119 

meadow  to  the  forest  beyond,  the  Burgo- 
master told  me  of  the  morning  when  they 
stood  at  these  windows,  after  the  shells 
had  been  falling  for  days  all  about  them, 
waiting  and  watching,  scarcely  daring  to 
breathe,  and  of  how  as  they  watched,  he 
saw  through  the  trees  of  the  forest  what 
looked  like  a  brown  shadow,  but  the 
brown  shadow  moved,  and  then  running 
across  the  meadow,  where  he  had  always 
believed  they  must  break  through,  came 
the  Belgian  soldiers,  the  soldiers  of  de- 
liverance. ''I  know  our  hearts  stopt  beat- 
ing; we  stood  choking,  incapable  of  mo- 
tion, as  we  watched  them  come — still 
unable  to  believe  after  four  years  of  wait- 
ing." 

We  were  silent  for  a  few  minutes,  then 
we  began  to  talk  of  the  lace.  As  his  wife 
turned  to  get  the  list  of  her  villages,  I 
asked  if  the  Germans  had  attempted  to 
get  her  workers  away  from  her.  "They 
had  their  agents  here,   as  everywhere," 


120  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

she  answered,  ''and  I  regret  to  admit  that 
one  of  their  most  successful  ones  was  a 
Belgian  woman,  who  had  been  a  facteur, 
or  lace  gatherer  for  larger  houses,  be- 
fore the  war.  When  the  Germans  offered 
her  large  prices,  she  consented  to  serve 
them.  If  she  had  been  sacrificing  herself 
for  what  she  believed  to  be  the  good  of 
the  workers,  we  might  have  forgiven  her, 
but  it  was  obvious  that  she  was  not — she 
is  pretty  and  likes  pretty  clothes — Voila 
tout!  Along  with  several  other  disloyal 
citizens,  she  was  imprisoned  the  other 
day,  but  unfortunately  after  only  twenty- 
four  hours,  succeeded  in  freeing  herself. 
However,  the  people  will  never  forget 
that  she  trafficked  with  the  enemy." 

I  had  known  of  the  German  lace  organ- 
ization first  through  seeing  the  huge  sign, 
"Allgemeine  Spitzen  Centrale"  (Central 
lace  depot),  just  across  from  our  C.  R.  B. 
offices.  And  as  soon  as  I  got  in  touch 
with  the  loyal  work  of  the  women  of  the 


THOUROUT-THIELT— WYNGHENE  121 

Belgian  Lace  Committee,  I  was  daily 
hearing  of  this  or  that  attempt  of  their 
oppressors  to  capture  the  designs  and  the 
output  of  the  country.  They  might  suc- 
ceed with  the  simpler,  more  helpless 
workers,  who  because  of  their  great 
misery  may  be  forgiven  for  selling  to 
them — and  with  the  deserters  and 
activists — but  they  were  daily  defeated 
by  the  Committee  patriots.  I  was 
thoroughly  interested  to  hear,  now,  from 
one  of  the  patriots,  that  the  idea  of  the 
German  "Lace  Control"  possibly  had  its 
birth  in  Wynghene.  In  February,  19 15, 
a  certain  Freiherr  Von  Rippenhausen 
was  stationed  at  Wynghene.  He  had 
with  him  his  young  American  wife — they 
had  been  married  but  a  short  time,  and 
the  people  of  the  village  were  kind  enough 
to  say  they  believed  she  was  not  German 
by  conviction!  However  that  may  be, 
the  Von  Rippenhausens  requisitioned 
lodgings  in  the  house  of  one  of  the  lace 


122  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

buyers  of  Wynghene,  and  in  this  house 
they  naturally  discovered  much  regard- 
ing the  lace  situation,  the  lack  of 
thread,  and  the  distress  of  the  workers, 
and  of  the  Belgian  system  by  which  the 
facteur  furnishes  the  thread  to  the 
worker  and  buys  the  finished  products, 
which  he  in  turn  sells  to  a  big  lace  house, 
reaping  what  profit  he  can  as  inter- 
mediary. Frau  von  Rippenhausen,  in 
particular,  informed  herself  thoroughly, 
and  together  she  and  her  husband,  it  is 
said,  organized  the  German  "Lace  Con- 
trol," with  headquarters  at  Brussels. 

Since  the  Germans  had  requisitioned 
all  the  thread  they  could  lay  their  hands 
on,  of  which  there  were  enormous  stocks 
in  Belgium,  it  was  not  difficult  for  them 
to  offer  it  to  the  workers.  They  sent 
German  soldier  facteurs  into  every 
corner  of  the  country  to  offer  large  prices 
to  native  facteurs  or  to  individual 
workers.     On  receiving  a  piece  of  lace, 


THOUROUT— THIELT-WYNGHENE  123 

they  supplied  an  equal  weight  of  thread 
to  the  workers,  thus  estabhshing  a  con- 
tinuing chain  of  material  and  product. 
And  they  claimed  to  be  selling  their  lace 
in  America !  They  were  clever  enough 
to  profit,  in  191 7,  by  the  Committee's  ap- 
parent inability  to  go  on  at  that  moment, 
exercising  every  pressure  they  could,  and 
naturally  they  gained  ground.  No  one 
can  say  yet  how  much  lace  they  were  able 
to  buy,  but  the  amount  of  inferior  lace 
was  considerable. 

Madame  Van  der  Bruggen's  records 
show  that  before  191 7  there  were  in 
Wynghene,  contributing  to  the  Commit- 
tee, 400  workers  on  Cluny  and  Duchesse, 
about  200  on  Cluny  and  Valenciennes  in 
Beernem,  200  on  Valenciennes  in 
Oedelem,  and  350  in  Oostcamp,  all  grate- 
ful to  have  the  Committee's  fixt  mini- 
mum of  three  francs'  work  a  week  in- 
sured to  them.  Some  of  these  villages, 
Beernem  and  Oostcamp  for  instance,  are 


124  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

usually  included  in  the  Bruges  district. 
She  praised  the  Committee's  method  of 
raising  the  wage  by  standardizing  the 
values  of  certain  designs  as  executed  by 
an  average  worker;  the  poorer  workers 
then  gained  less,  the  superior  ones,  more. 
"I  thought  I  realized,"  she  said,  "how 
cruelly  underpaid  our  women  were,  but  it 
was  not  until  I  saw  their  joy  when  the 
Committee  promised  them  that  at  least 
they  should  always  have  a  minimum  of  ten 
centimes  an  hour  for  their  work,  that  I 
really  understood.  Ten  centimes  (two 
cents),  just  a  postage  stamp,  for  a  whole 
hour's  straining  effort;  and  they  were 
happy  because  that  was  so  much  more 
than  they  had  been  sure  of  winning  be- 
fore the  war!" 


IV 
GRAMMONT 


125 


IV 

GRAMMONT 
Belgian  Home  of  Chantilly 

THE  Committee  was  discouraging 
about  Grammont.  When  I  told 
Madame  de  Beughem  of  my  plan  to 
go  there  to  see  Chantilly  lace  in  the 
making,  she  answered,  *'But  that  will  be 
a  futile  journey;  the  women  have  had 
practically  no  black  or  white  silk  thread 
since  the  war,  and  the  few  who  were 
still  working  in  1914  will  have  stopt;  that 
one-time  important  branch  of  the  indus- 
try has  almost  ceased  to  exist."  I  de- 
cided, however,  to  visit  the  tomb  of 
Chantilly,  the  lace  so  closely  identified 
with  Grammont  that  in  Belgium  it  takes 

127 


128  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

its  name  from  that  city,  rather  than  from 
its  original  French  home. 

'And  Grammont  itself,  a  town  of  13,000 
inhabitants,  was  well  worth  the  journey, 
situated  as  it  is  in  a  lovely  region  of  roll- 
ing hills,  and  deriving  its  name  from 
the  steep  slope  (Grand  Mont)  to  which 
part  of  the  city  clings.  The  surrounding 
undulating  country  is  dotted  with  quaint, 
clustered  villages,  some  with  thatched, 
some  with  tiled  roofs,  and  only  twenty 
miles  away  is  the  charming  town  of 
Audenarde — poor  Audenarde,  so  cruelly 
wounded  by  the  war! 

I  reached  Grammont  about  noon,  hav- 
ing lost  an  hour  on  the  way  through  the 
difficulty  of  passing  camions  and  artillery 
and  marching  companies  of  Canadian  sol- 
diers. Between  Ninove  and  Grammont, 
too,  were  many  squads  of  German  pris- 
oners at  work  on  the  ruined  road.  They 
were  guarded  by  the  French,  but  it  was 
a  rather  lenient  surveillance,  at  any  rate 


:--^m 


ri'SHIOX   COVER 

Center  Venise,  borders   Valenciennes,   lace  executed  by   12  workers 

in    one    month,    embroidery   and    mountin,<?   by    four   women    in    two 

months,    desiii'ii    by    M.    de    Rudder 


TKA     (l.inii 

Pcjint  dc  Paris,  cock  desij^n 


GRAMMONT  129 

the  sullen  groups  in  their  trailing  gray- 
capes  appeared  to  be  casually  tapping  the 
mud  with  their  spades  instead  of  being 
genuinely  at  work. 

My  Belgian  chauffeur,  whose  health  is 
broken  after  three  years  of  forced  labor 
in  Germany,  would  have  been  delighted 
to  run  them  down,  and  at  one  point  did 
succeed  in  splashing  a  group  with  mud, 
as  he  called  "Boches"  and  something  I 
did  not  catch.  I  began  to  understand  the 
ruling  that  released  Belgian  prisoners 
shall  not  be  placed  over  Germans  still 
held  here. 

After  lunch  I  started  with  Madame 
Cuseners  to  the  little  lace  school  whose 
director  has  courageously  carried  on  dur- 
ing the  four  years.  We  walked  through 
a  narrow  arched  passageway  beside  a 
brick  building  and  into  a  large  hall  at  the 
rear  which  was  at  one  time  the  lace  class- 
room. Instead  of  lace-workers,  however, 
we  found  Scotch  and  Canadian  soldiers 


130  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

busy  tacking  the  Union  Jack  and  Belgian 
flags  on  the  wall,  and  hanging  boughs 
and  festoons  of  colored  paper  rings — 
they  were  making  ready  for  a  "grand" 
New  Year's  Eve  dancing  party.  In  the 
courtyard  still  farther  back  a  half-dozen 
Scotchmen  had  built  a  campfire,  protect- 
ing it  with  a  low  canvas  roof,  and  it  was 
burning  brightly  despite  the  dismal  rain. 
It  shone  on  the  windows  of  the  long, 
narrow  room  at  the  side  of  the  court, 
which  looked  like  a  conservatory,  but 
which  had  become  the  refuge  of  the  lace- 
workers,  when  because  of  lack  of  thread 
and  fuel,  they  could  no  longer  occupy 
their  hall.  I  found  fifty  sweet-faced  girls 
between  thirteen  and  fifteen  busy  over 
their  cushions,  a  faithful,  tired-looking 
old  Abbe  and  an  enthusiastic  young 
woman  teacher.  They  were  not  making 
black  nor  the  less  important  white  silk 
Chantilly,  for  they  had  long  been  entirely 
without  silk  thread.     Nevertheless,  they 


GRAMMONT  131 

were  preserving  the  art  of  making  it, 
since  they  had  been  kept  at  work  on 
Chantilly  designs  executed  with  bobbins 
and  the  white  cotton  thread  furnished  by 
the  Committee.  They  had  some  fine 
flounces,  which  were  not,  however,  to  be 
compared  with  the  traditional  black  silk 
ones  of  the  great  Chantilly  days. 

For  Chantilly  has  seen  great  days.  It 
appeared  first  in  France  about  1740, 
where  it  achieved  a  phenomenal  popular- 
ity, which  was  unfortunately  rudely  ended 
by  the  Revolution,  for  since  it  was  a 
favorite  lace  at  coui*t,  the  Revolutionists 
made  it  a  crime  to  appear  in  Chantilly. 
Later,  under  the  Empire,  it  enjoyed  a  re- 
vival, the  fabrication  of  the  silk  laces 
spread  in  France;  Bayeux  became  a  cele- 
brated center;  and,  finally,  toward  1835, 
it  crossed  to  Belgium,  where  Grammont 
was  early  recognized  as  its  home.  In 
185 1  all  of  the  forty-nine  schools  of  that 
province    taught   the    technique    of   this 


132  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

lace.  Then  toward  1870  true  Chantilly 
seemed  doomed  a  second  time  to  extinc- 
tion by  the  success  of  the  machine  imita- 
tions of  St.  Pierre  des  Calais,  and  also 
because  the  vogue  for  black  lace  had 
passed.  But  again  the  pendulum  has 
swung  back;  the  imitations  are  now 
greatly  in  favor  and  there  is  a  cheering 
increase  in  the  demand  for  the  true  lace 
flounces. 

The  Abbe  brought  out  from  dusty 
drawers  the  school's  stock  of  designs, 
elegant  groupings  of  bouquets  and 
foliage,  with  occasional  striking  geo- 
metrical details  introduced,  all  joined  by 
a  fine  hexagonal  mesh,  which  resembled 
at  first  that  of  Malines,  and  later,  more 
closely,  the  Point  d'Alencon  mesh.  The 
fact  that  this  lace  is  often  used  for  scarfs 
and  gowns,  and  that  the  customary 
flounce  is  of  generous  width,  has  en- 
couraged the  development  of  elaborate 
patterns.      Some    of    the    sketches    were 


GRAMMONT  ISS 

divided  by  heavy  pencil  lines  into  the 
separate  narrow  strips  on  which  the  lace- 
maker  actually  works.  To  achieve  the 
wide  flounce,  these  strips  are  attached 
one  to  another  by  special  workers  who 
employ  a  joining  stitch  that  defies  detec- 
tion. The  individual  pattern  strips  in- 
clude both  mesh  and  flowers  and  follow 
irregular  lines,  curving,  it  may  be,  to  in- 
clude a  full-petaled  rose.  When  one  ex- 
amines the  fineness  of  the  clear  hexagonal 
mesh  that  forms  the  base  of  Chantilly,  it 
seems  all  the  more  remarkable  that  the 
division  lines  are  not  visible.  This  Chan- 
tilly mesh  has  differed  during  various 
periods  and  besides  there  are  always  al- 
most as  many  varieties  as  there  are 
workers,  for  one  weaves  more  closely  or 
more  firmly  than  another.  I  came  soon 
to  realize  how  great  a  difference  in  effect 
results  from  a  practically  invisible  varia- 
tion in  the  thickness  of  the  thread,  or  in 
the  manner  of  twisting  or  looping  it  or 


134.  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

in  the  placing  of  the  pins.  One  of  the 
distinguishing  characteristics  of  Chantilly 
is  the  reHef  produced  by  a  heavier  thread 
that  outHnes  the  pattern  and  forms  the 
twigs  and  veins  of  the  leaves.  In  secur- 
ing a  brilliant  relief,  the  French  have 
always  succeeded  better  than  the  Bel- 
gians. 

These  Grammont  pupils  were  also  mak- 
ing Blonde,  a  favorite  lace  with  the 
Spanish  people,  and  introduced  into  Bel- 
gium from  France  at  the  same  time  as 
Chantilly.  Its  processes  are  very  similar, 
tho  it  is  easily  differentiated  from  its 
sister  by  the  heavy  glossy  petals  of  its 
flowers  and  their  conspicuous  open-work 
centers  in  the  Point  de  Paris  stitch.  The 
name  Blonde  is  derived  from  the  ecru 
silk  which  was  first  employed  in  its  mak- 
ing; now  it  is  made  of  white  or  of  black 
silk,  and  chiefly  in  the  form  of  scarfs  or 
mantillas.  The  girls  were  making  their 
war-time  Blonde  of  cotton,  the  good  Peat 


GRAMMONT  135 

cotton  of  Nottingham,  brought  in  by  the 
C.  R.  B.  for  the  Lace  Committee.  It  is 
practically  only  in  the  Grammont  and 
Turnhout  regions  that  Blonde  is  still 
made. 

The  instructress  showed  me  the  little 
bundles  of  poor,  crooked  brass  pins  that 
were  all  that  remained  after  four  years 
of  the  occupation,  explaining  what  harm 
poor  pins  can  work  in  a  fine  mesh  like 
that  of  Chantilly.  Then  she  asked  if  I 
could  not  tell  them  when  they  might  ex- 
pect new  ones.  Alas,  these  disheartening 
months  of  the  winter  of  1918-1919  when 
one  hope  after  another  has  been  deferred; 
so  many  things  to  be  done  at  once,  and 
all  depending  on  the  re-establishment  of 
a  system  of  transportation  utterly  de- 
stroyed. 

I  went  from  the  school-room,  past  the 
fire  in  the  courtyard,  back  to  the  large  hall 
where  the  Canadians  were  still  decorat- 
ing for  their  party,  and  where  we  wished 


186  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

one  another  a  Happy  New  Year — brave 
Canadian  boys  well  loved  by  the  Belgians 
— then  on  to  the  house  of  Madame's 
mother,  who  for  a  half-century  has  been 
a  lace  fahricant,  or  dealer,  and  whose 
front  room  served  easily  as  combined 
salon  and  office.  Precious  laces  need  very 
little  space;  they  can  be  stored  in  a  hand- 
some carved  oak  armoire,  which  is  at 
once  a  safe  and  a  beautiful  article  of 
furniture.  This  old  lady's  hair  was  still 
dark  and  glossy,  as  is  so  often  the  case 
with  grandmothers  in  Europe,  and  her 
brown  eyes  were  bright  and  keen.  She 
talked  of  the  time  when  there  were  more 
than  twenty  dealers  employing  over  2,000 
workers  on  Chantilly  in  the  Grammont 
region,  and  of  the  gradual  decline  of  the 
industry.  "Certain  empty  houses  on  the 
heights  above  the  town  tell  the  story. 
Long  ago  the  lace-makers  left  the  valley 
at  the  foot  of  the  slope,  and  seeking  the 
brighter  light  on  the  hill,  formed  a  lace 


GRAMMONT  137 

colony  there;  but  they  have  come  down 
again,  the  houses  on  the  hill  are  deserted. 
One  by  one  the  skilled  old  workers  have 
died,  and  their  secrets  with  them.    There 
is  only  one  really  excellent  piqueuse  left 
and  she  is  a  baker-woman  who  exercises 
her  talent  of  pricking  patterns  between 
baking!     And  I  believe  that  instead  of 
the  former  thousands,  we  have  not  more 
than   eight   hundred   dentellieres   to-day. 
Here,  as  elsewhere,  factories  have  come, 
and  the  lace  has  fled.    With  us  it  is  the 
cigar  and  the  match  that  have  banished 
it,   they   furnish   better   wages    and   our 
women  follow.     However,  if  we  can  win 
a  higher  pay  for  the  lace,  and  can  but 
develop  the  little  school  you  have  just 
visited,  and  continue  to  train  our  girls, 
we  shall  yet  be  able  to  restore  Chantilly. 
Especially,"    she   added,    ''if   we   can   be 
helped  by  that  fickle   Mistress   Fashion, 
who  last  year  smiled  again  on  the  black 
lace  gown.     Some  of  our   patterns   for 


138  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

robes  can  be  made  in  a  few  weeks,  but 
the  truly  fine  ones  take  months,  even  a 
year  to  make.  All  depends  on  the  design 
and  the  number  of  threads.  We  have  had 
much  to  combat  in  the  success  of  the 
marvelous  Calais  machine  imitations  of 
Chantilly,  but  true  lovers  of  lace  will 
never  be  content  with  them,  however 
clever  they  are." 

She  shook  out  a  folded  triangular 
shawl.  "There  is  no  lace  in  the  world 
more  beautiful  than  this,"  she  said,  as 
she  spread  it  on  the  white  tablecloth,  the 
better  to  display  the  wealth  of  its  black 
flower  clusters  and  long  fronds,  and  then 
had  me  squeeze  the  delicate  mesh  in  my 
hand  to  test  its  resiliency.  I  could  not 
but  agree  with  her.  Her  daughter 
brought  out  an  exquisite  collar,  a  tendril 
and  flower  pattern,  with  long  tabs  that 
could  be  crossed  in  front  and  let  fall 
like  a  sash  behind,  a  "Marie  Antoinette" 
of  most  tempting  loveliness ;  then  a  dainty 


GRAIklMONT  1S9 

parasol  and  a  fan  and  a  few  filmy  winged 
butterflies — all  pieces  made  before  the 
war,  before  the  Germans  set  a  wall  of 
fire  between  the  women  of  Grammont  and 
the  silk  thread  (Grenadine  d'Alays) 
which  meant  their  bread. 

I  was  glad  to  have  a  few  hours  of 
sweeping  hill  country  between  these  ele- 
gant black  laces  and  the  Valenciennes  I 
was  next  to  see ;  for  the  moment  all  white 
lace  seemed  negligible. 


V 
BRUGES 


141 


V 

BRUGES 
Queen  of  Lace  Cities 

AFTER  a  day  beside  the  graves  of 
Nieuport  and  Dixmude  and  Ypres, 
the  first  glimpse  of  the  singing  towers 
of  Bruges  against  the  evening  sky 
seems  an  unearthly  vision.  During  four 
years  no  one  had  known  that  Bruges 
would  not  perish  as  her  sisters  had  per- 
ished. One  must  have  come  direct  from 
the  desolation  of  Nieuport,  to  her  pignons 
and  bridges,  from  the  skeleton  of  Les 
Halles  of  Ypres  to  her  Hotel  de  Ville, 
to  estimate  her  incomparable  beauty. 
Since  Ypres  is  dead,  only  Bruges  and 
Turnhout  remain  as  true  lace  cities  of 
Belgium;  Ghent,  the  elegant  neighbor  of 

143 


144  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

Bruges,  and  herself  once  a  Queen  in  the 
lace  world,  has  turned  to  her  factories 
and  no  longer  counts.  Except  Turnhout, 
then,  with  its  famous  schools  for  fine 
laces,  no  Belgian  city  to-day  challenges 
the  leadership  of  Bruges,  and  beyond 
Belgium,  she  has  but  one  great  rival — 
Venice 

This  claim  to  leadership  rests  on  a 
solid  foundation.  Bruges  is  of  ancient 
lineage  in  the  lace  world;  she  has  pre- 
served unbroken,  through  at  least  four 
centuries,  the  traditions  of  that  world. 
There  are  those  even  who  believe  that 
medieval  bobbin  lace  had  its  origin  in 
her  territory,  and  they  are  at  least  sup- 
ported by  legend.  A  pretty  story  tells 
of  a  poor  and  infirm  widow,  who  with 
her  many  children  lived  in  a  little  street 
of  Bruges.  The  entire  family  depended 
only  on  the  work  of  Serena,  the  eldest, 
who  from  dawn  till  dark  turned  her 
wheel.     She  had  long  been  loved  by  a 


BRUGES  146 

neighbor,  Arnold,  the  son  of  a  great  mer- 
chant, and  she  did  not  view  him  with  dis- 
favor. But  as  winter  and  misery  settled 
again  on  the  poor  little  hut,  and  Serena 
saw  that  all  her  efforts  appeared  vain, 
she  vowed  to  the  Virgin  never  to  marry 
unless  her  family  could  be  rescued  from 
their  suffering.  Then  one  day  when  near 
the  Minnewater,  as  she  was  making  sad 
thoughts,  suddenly  she  saw  a  light,  and 
from  the  Virgin  threads  descended 
toward  her,  which,  skipping  the  branches, 
dropt  in  her  lap,  where  they  by  chance 
designed  lovely  patterns.  Serena  under- 
stood this  to  be  the  response  to  her 
prayer,  and  she  tried  at  once  to  reproduce 
the  arabesques  in  linen  thread.  She 
ended  by  attaching  little  woods  to  them 
and  by  aiding  them  with  pins.  And  thus 
to  the  great  emotion  of  Bruges  bobbin- 
lace  was  born.  And  all  the  rich  seigneurs 
and  bourgeois  wished  to  possess  it. 
Ease  came  and  Serena  married  Arnold, 


146  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

and   they   had   many   daughters,    all    of 
whom  she  taught  to  make  lace. 

The  often  quoted  picture  in  the  Louvre 
Gallery,  painted  by  Hans  Memling  (14 — 
to  1494)  and  representing  the  Virgin  and 
the  Infant  Christ  surrounded  by  gift- 
bearers,  among  whom  is  a  rich  Brugeois 
wearing  a  gray  costume  trimmed  with  a 
bobbin-lace  edging,  certainly  indicates 
that  the  industry  existed  in  this  epoch, 
and  possibly  had  its  center  at  Bruges, 
then  the  principal  city  in  Flanders  and 
the  seat  of  the  court.  Furthermore, 
records  prove  that  already  at  the  opening 
of  the  1 6th  century,  lace-making  was 
included  as  a  necessary  part  of  the  edu- 
cation of  women.  The  edicts  of  Charles 
V  requiring  that  it  should  be  taught  in 
all  the  schools  and  convents,  greatly  stim- 
ulated its  development  in  Bruges,  as  well 
as  throughout  the  entire  Flanders  and  the 
provinces  of  Hainaut,  Brabant  and  Ant- 
werp.    It  became  so  popular  an  occupa- 


BRUGES  147 

tion  for  women  that  Charles's  successor, 
Phihp  II,  required  that  the  magistrates 
of  Ghent  and  Bruges  restrict  the  number 
of  lace-workers  in  their  cities,  in  order 
that  the  rich  might  find  some  women  left 
willing  to  serve  them.  Another  enlighten- 
ing document  shows  that  in  1544  Bruges 
counted  7,696  poor  among  her  population, 
and  that  the  department  of  public  charity 
required  of  the  young  women  among 
them  that  they  should  cease  to  walk  the 
streets  and  should  learn  the  lace  industry. 
There  were  at  that  time  many  lace 
schools.  During  the  following  centuries, 
Bruges  maintained  her  position  as  a  lace 
center  and  was  able  to  survive  the  death- 
blow the  French  Revolution  dealt  the  in- 
dustry. For  we  find,  about  the  middle  of 
the  19th  century,  the  city  still  counted 
seventy-nine  schools,  attended  by  2,^22 
pupils,  while  in  Valenciennes,  for  example, 
lace-making  no  longer  existed. 

There  is,  then,  a  rich  and  ancient  past 


148  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

back  of  the  clicking  bobbins  of  the  Bruges 
of  to-day.  After  four  years  of  German 
rule  it  is  still  difficult  to  give  accurate 
statistics,  but  generally  speaking,  in  this 
city  of  54,000  inhabitants,  as  many  as 
5,000  women  and  girls  make  lace  of  some 
sort.  If  you  question  the  average  w^oman, 
she  will  probably  look  at  you  in  surprize 
and  say :  *'How  many  lace-makers  ?  Why, 
everybody;  there  is  hardly  a  house  in 
Bruges  without  its  cushion  and  bobbins." 
While  if  you  put  the  same  question  to 
such  a  celebrated  lace  dealer  as  M.  Gille- 
mont  de  Cock,  who  counts  gold  and  silver 
medals  from  many  nations,  he  will  be 
very  apt  to  answer:  "Madame,  before 
the  war  I  knew  of  about  thirty,  now  I 
can  not  say!"  The  Lace  Committee  at 
Brussels  considers  5,000  a  fair  estimate 
for  Bruges  and  her  contributing  villages, 
which  is  the  number  given,  too,  by  Pro- 
fessor Maertens  of  the  Normal  School. 
By  the  Bruges  district  is  meant  chiefly 


BRUGES  14» 

Bruges,  quite  the  contrary  of  the  usual 
situation.    One  hears  of  the  Alost  region, 
for   instance,   and   finds   that   while   the 
villages   of  the   surrounding  area   count 
thousands  of  workers,  in  the  city  of  Alost 
itself    .very    few    are    left.      However, 
Bruges,   too,   counts   some   few  outlying 
villages.     Madame   Ryeland,   representa- 
tive during  the  war  of  the  Brussels  Lace 
Committee,  told  me  that  forty  communes 
contributed  to  her   committee,   the  most 
important  being   Syssele    (where  Valen- 
ciennes is  the  favorite  lace),  Maldeghem 
(applications    and    filet),    Saint    Andre 
'(Cluny  and  Valenciennes),  Oostcamp  and 
Lophem     (Valenciennes),     Saint     Croix 
(Cluny  and  other  guipures),  and  Saint 
Michele  (an  unusually  beautiful  Duchesse 
de  Bruges). 

In  Bruges  itself  there  are  three  im- 
portant convent  lace  schools,  working 
largely  for  the  shops,  but  which  also  exe- 
cute   private    commands;    the    convent 


150  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

school  of  the  Apostohnes,  typical  of  those 
where  the  children  learn  a  little  Flemish, 
a  little  French,  much  catechism,  and  for 
the  rest  make  the  laces  of  the  region  from 
morning  till  evening;  the  school  Defoere, 
and  the  well-known  school  Josephine. 
Each  has  between  lOO  and  200  den- 
tellieres,  who  make  the  popular  Torchons 
and  Clunys  and  Valenciennes,  and  also 
the  more  difficult  Binche,  with  its  mesh 
characterized  by  the  airy  "houles  de 
neige,"  snowballs.  They  make,  too.  Old 
Flanders,  which  has  a  particularly  strong 
and  elaborate  mesh;  and  of  course  the 
Duchesse  de  Bruges,  or  Bruges,  for  which 
the  city  is  famous.  In  addition  to  the 
convent  schools  and  a  few  other  less  im- 
portant laique  schools  and  some  work- 
rooms, one  finds  in  the  Hospices,  or  free 
homes  for  the  old,  another  goodly  com- 
pany working  together.  In  their  pic- 
turesque  retreats   some  200  old   women 


BRUGES  151 

pass    their    days    making    lace,    chiefly 
Valenciennes. 

There  remain  the  individual  house- 
holds; to  the  common  statement  that  in 
each  one,  some  member  makes  some  kind 
of  lace,  one  might  add,  at  some  time  dur- 
ing the  year.  If  the  children  from  these 
homes  do  not  go  to  the  schools  to  learn, 
they  are  taught  by  their  mothers  and 
grandmothers.  A  favorite  Christmas 
gift  to  children  is  a  cushion  and  set  of 
bobbins,  with  which  .  they  soon  learn  to 
produce  simple  patterns.  For  example, 
Madame  Roose,  the  daughter  of  the  con- 
cierge of  the  Groothuis  Museum,  which 
houses  the  marvelous  Baron  Liedts  col- 
lection of  old  laces,  accustomed  from 
childhood  to  see  and  hear  of  these  laces, 
became  herself  a  lace-maker  and  later  a 
successful  dealer  and  now  has  five  daugh- 
ters of  her  own,  all  of  whom  she  has  her- 
self taught  to  ply  their  bobbins.  The 
Lace  Committee  told  me  that  during  the 


152  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

war  the  clothing  committee  had  difficulty 
in  finding  young  girls  and  women  who 
could  darn  and  sew  even  moderately  well ; 
since  childhood  they  had  given  all  their 
time  to  lace-making.  Conscious  of  the 
danger  in  this  situation,  the  Lace  Normal 
School  preaches  that  until  she  has  learned 
other  necessary  things,  no  young  girl 
should  be  allowed  to  spend  more  than 
half  a  day  over  her  cushion. 

By  far  the  greater  number  working  at 
home  make  Torchon,  Cluny  and  Valen- 
ciennes, tho  the  Bruges  district  is  cele- 
brated, too,  for  Rosaline  and  Binche  and 
Old  Flanders,  and  above  all  for  the 
Duchesse  de  Bruges,  once  so  named  be- 
cause it  was  thought  worthy  to  adorn  a 
Duchess.  Bruges  lace  has  always  been 
made  entirely  with  bobbins,  in  separate 
flowers,  or  details  that  are  united  not 
by  mesh,  but  by  little  picot-edged  cords 
or  bars.  There  are  many  varieties 
of     this     familiar     lace;     between     the 


y.  .- 


o    tj 


5r,    C 


BED    COVER    IX    DUCHE3SE,    OR    BRUSSELS    LACK 

Made   with   bol)bins ;   executed  in   Flanders  by  30  women   in   three 
months ;    design    liy    The    Lace    ('ommittce 


BRUGES  153 

coarse,  much  marketed  modern  Bruges, 
with  its  well-known  roses  and  trefoils, 
sometimes  scarcely  meriting  the  name  of 
lace,  and  the  Bruges  of  the  robe  presented 
in  1 90 1  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  then  the 
Princess  Elizabeth,  there  is  a  deplorable 
distance.  The  individual  trefoils  and 
arabesques  and  roses  of  the  coarser  kinds 
are  made  very  quickly  on  the  round 
cushion,  which  can  be  readily  turned,  and 
are  produced  in  great  quantities  in  many 
of  the  communes  of  the  Bruges  region, 
while  fortunately  in  such  a  village  as 
Saint  Michel  one  can  still  see  exquisite 
examples  of  the  finer  Bruges  in  the  mak- 
ing. 

Rather  than  be  introduced  to  the  lace- 
making  of  Bruges  by  the  younger 
workers  in  the  schools,  or  in  one  of  the 
thousand  homes  given  over  to  it,  I  pre- 
ferred to  go  first  to  the  place  where  prob- 
ably more  strangers,  especially  English 
and  Americans,  have  been  initiated  into 


164  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

the  mysteries  of  the  cushion  and  its 
bobbins  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world. 
There  have  been  other  famous  Beguinages 
in  Belgium — congeries  of  houses  main- 
tained by  private  endowment,  for  women, 
who,  while  they  object  to  taking  the  vows 
of  the  convent,  yet  wish  to  live  in  a 
kind  of  partial  retreat  from  the  world 
and  under  the  protection  of  the  church — 
but  none  lovelier  than  this  one  of  Bruges, 
with  its  sixteenth  century  buildings  of 
pure  Flemish  architecture,  grouped  about 
a  wide  green  court  shaded  by  elm  trees. 
Naturally  the  Beguinage  has  not  been  a 
mecca  for  travelers  and  artists  merely 
because  several  of  the  gentle  old  ladies 
in  retreat  there  made  beautiful  lace;  they 
have  come  in  search  of  its  quaint  pignons 
and  doorways,  its  inner  gardens,  the 
bridges  that  span  the  surrounding  canals 
where  the  swans  paddle  peacefully.  And 
they  have  been  delighted  to  find  included 
in  the  picture  the   white-capped  women 


BRUGES  166 

before  their  lace  cushions,  intent  (doubt- 
less unconsciously)  on  perpetuating  other 
beauties,  as  old  as  those  of  the  buildings 
encircling  the  court,  the  designs  of 
Valenciennes  that  have  been  handed  down 
by  French  and  Belgian  mothers  to  their 
children  through  generations.  These 
ladies  of  the  Beguinage  may  keep  their 
private  fortunes  and  pay  for  the  privileges 
of  the  retreat.  They  are  supposed,  how- 
ever, to  live  austerely;  their  charming- 
brick  houses  are  white  inside — wall-papers 
(as  being  too  gay)  are  forbidden — while 
the  floors  are  covered  with  a  kind  of 
pretty,  rude  rush  carpet.  They  may  not 
go  on  journeys,  and  no  man  outside,  ex- 
cept the  clergy,  may  enter  the  sacred  pre- 
cincts of  the  court,  the  gates  of  which  are 
closed  at  8  o'clock.  Can  one  imagine  an 
atmosphere  more  encouraging  to  hours 
spent  patiently  in  lace-making?  It  is  re- 
corded that  in  the  Beguinage  of  Ghent, 
in   1756,  there  were  as  many  as   5,000 


166  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

women  engaged  in  making  the  Valen- 
ciennes for  which  that  city  was  famous. 
But  the  day  of  this  particular  kind  of  re- 
treat has  passed,  and  even  at  Bruges  many 
of  the  houses  are  vacant ;  when  the  old  die, 
there  are  few  who  wish  to  take  their 
places.  And  it  is  only  because  those  few 
who  remain  preserve  the  best  traditions 
of  the  lace  that  they  count  in  the  lace- 
world  of  to-day;  the  quantity  produced 
is  negligible.  Nevertheless,  I  was  de- 
lighted that  my  first  knowledge  of  Bruges 
lace  should  come  through  the  few  wide 
Valenciennes  flounces  of  exquisite  flower 
and  vine  pattern  and  firm  and  even  work- 
manship that  I  found  still  pinned  to  the 
cushions  of  the  Beguinage. 

Curiously  enough,  in  this  retreat,  per- 
vaded by  the  sadness  that  inevitably  reigns 
where  the  old  order  changes,  I  found  the 
young  and  enthusiastic  Vicaire,  Professor 
Maertens,  assistant  director  of  the  new 
Lace    Normal    School    of    Bruges.      He 


BRUGES  157 

lives  with  his  aunt,  who  is  the  mother 
director    of    the    Beguinage    and    called 
"Madame,  la  Grande  Dame,"  tho  she  is 
still  Mademoiselle.     The  Beguinage  may 
in  one  sense  represent  the  despair  of  the 
lace,   since   what   is   happening   there   is 
happening  throughout  Belgium.     But  in 
the  person  of  Professor  Maertens  of  the 
Normal  School,  the  Beguinage  represents, 
too,  the  hope  of  the  lace.     In  the  plain 
little  room  of  his  charming  Gothic  house, 
he  explained  with  admirable  clarity  the 
necessity  which  led  to  the  founding  of 
this  Normal  School  by  the  State  in  191 1, 
and  the  system  which  it  has  developed. 
He  then  arranged  that  I  should  "assist" 
at    the    reouverture    of    the    school    the 
following  morning.     There  was  to  be  a 
reopening  because,   in  common  with   so 
many    schools    of    Belgium,    the    Lace 
Normal  had  been  driven  from  its  quar- 
ters by  the  Germans,  and  tho  after  their 
eviction  the  teachers  had  persisted  in  con- 


158  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

tinuing  their  classes  in  a  convent,  where 
their  persecutors  forced  them  to  receive 
two  Austrian  pupils  (from  whom,  how- 
ever, they  concealed  much),  they  were  in 
the  true  sense  to  begin  again  on  Jan- 
uary 7,  1 919.  That  was  fully  four  weeks 
after  the  invader  had  had  to  evacuate,  for 
eager  as  they  were  to  commence,  with 
their  best  effort,  they  had  not  been  able 
before  this  to  prepare  three  school-rooms 
and  a  few  smaller  ones  on  the  ground 
floor  for  use.  We  are  accustomed  to  the 
pictures  of  the  territories  desolated  by 
the  Germans,  but  unless  one  goes  from 
house  to  house  in  the  districts  supposed  to 
be  left  unharmed,  he  can  have  no  concep- 
tion of  the  state  in  which  they  were  left. 
However,  by  Thursday  morning  the  few 
rooms  on  the  ground  floor  had  been  dis- 
infected and  whitewashed,  and  the  Lace 
Normal  School  of  Belgium  re-opened  its 
doors  at  8.30  o'clock.  Poets  have  de- 
scribed the  shining  faces  of  children  on 


BRUGES  159 

their  way  to  school — but  after  pupils  and 
teachers  have  been  ground  under  the 
heel  of  an  implacable  oppressor  for  four 
years  there  is  still  another  light  in  their 
faces  as  they  re-assemble  in  a  free  school- 
room. It  was  generous  of  them  to  allow 
me  to  share  their  first  morning. 

The  teachers'  course  covers  two  years. 
In  order  to  insure  careful  individual 
training  the  directors  prefer  to  have  no 
more  than  eight  or  ten  earnest  students 
in  each  year's  class ;  they  prefer,  too,  that 
these  shall  not  have  been  lace-makers 
before  entering,  and  that  they  be  be- 
tween sixteen  and  thirty  years  of  age. 
There  are,  then,  two  class-rooms,  light 
and  airy,  and  equipped  with  blackboards 
and  charts,  and  the  all-important  large 
demonstration  cushion  with  its  gigan- 
tesque  bobbins  attached  to  heavy  colored 
wool  threads  to  aid  the  eye  and  brain. 
Each  young  woman  records  the  steps  of 
her  progress  in  a  series  of  copy-books  so 


160  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

beautiful  in  their  penmanship  and  their 
drawing  as  to  recall  at  once  the  manu- 
scripts of  long  ago. 

What,  then,  is  the  instruction  which 
they  receive  ?  Since  there  had  never  been 
a  system  of  teaching  lace-making  in  Bel- 
gium, the  directors  of  the  Normal  School 
were  obliged  to  develop  one,  and  as  it 
exists  to-day,  logical,  comprehensive,  far- 
seeing,  it  belongs  exclusively  to  the 
School  of  Bruges.  By  the  defective 
method  employed  before,  a  pupil  was 
taught  to  make  one  kind  of  lace,  then 
another,  and  another,  but  tho  she  might 
become  proficient  in  the  execution  of 
thirty  kinds,  she  might  still  be  incapable 
of  executing  a  new  thirty-first  variety  if 
it  were  presented  to  her,  because  she  had 
not  been  taught  the  underlying  prin- 
ciples. 

The  Bruges  directors  found,  after  a 
long  and  careful  analysis  of  the  processes 
employed  in  all  known  laces,  that  they 


ROSALINE,     WHICH     CLOSELY     RESEMBLES     PRUGES 


DETAILS  FOR  BRUGES  LACE 

Made    with    Imliliins    on    round    cushion 


nOTI.Y    SET   IN    POTNT    DE   PARIS    IN    THE    "aNIMALS   OF   THE    AIJ-TES' 
DESIGN,   EXECUTED    AT   TURNHOUT 


BRUGES  161 

depend  on  but  between  twenty  and  thirty 
major  operations,  and  that,  in  the  final 
analysis,  for  the  bobbin  laces,  these  re- 
duce themselves  always  to  the  simple 
question,  "Does  the  thread  pass  from 
left  to  right,  or  does  it  pass  from  right 
to  left?" 

They  chose  specific  colors,  red,  purple, 
green  and  others,  to  represent  specific 
movements  of  the  threads,  thus  estab- 
lishing a  symbolic  color  system  of  design 
which  enables  the  pupil  to  read  a  black- 
board drawing  as  he  would  a  written 
page.  And  they  realized  that  before  the 
processes  are  portrayed  by  lines  on  the 
blackboard,  they  should  be  executed  with 
the  gigantesque  bobbins  and  the  colored 
wool  cords. 

They  then  outlined  the  two  years'  work, 
which  they  made  to  include  classes  in 
practical  lace-making,  in  design,  in  com- 
merce and  English,  in  the  history  of  lace- 
making,  and  religion.     Because  the  two 


162  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

years'  course  was  already  over-crowded 
they  did  not  attempt  to  teach  the  needle 
points,  which,  according  to  them,  do  not 
demand  a  system  of  instruction  in  the 
same  sense  that  the  bobbin  laces  require 
It.  Besides,  they  look  upon  bobbin  lace 
as  more  uniquely  Belgian  and  as  there- 
fore more  necessary  to  develop.  Dr. 
Rubbens  of  Zele,  farther  east,  plans  soon 
to  have  a  needle  lace  Normal  School  in 
operation  in  that  town. 

In  the  first  year  class,  a  demonstration 
of  the  use  of  the  tools,  the  winding-wheel, 
the  cushion  and  bobbins  is  followed  at 
once  by  the  study  of  the  Torchons,  which 
tho  they  are  the  commonest  known  laces, 
yet  in  all  their  varieties  employ  all  the 
more  important  lace  processes.  The 
Torchons  once  thoroughly  mastered,  the 
student  has  traveled  a  considerable  dis- 
tance on  the  lace  journey.  The  study  of 
Torchon  is  succeeded  by  Cluny  in  all 
its  varieties  and  Cluny  is  in  turn  followed 


BRUGES  163 

by  a  kind  of  barbaric  Russian  lace,  of 
baroque  design,  which  is,  like  the  Tor- 
chons and  Clunys,  made  of  linen  thread, 
and  resembles  them  closely  in  other  ways. 
The  finer  laces,  Valenciennes,  Duchesse, 
Flanders,  and  others  are  taught  only 
after  these  first  three  groups  have  been 
mastered. 

Along  with  the  actual  lace-making,  the 
students  follow  courses  in  design,  where 
they  begin  first  with  simple  studies  in 
geometry  and  in  drawing.  They  then  exe- 
cute geometric  designs  and  adapt  them  to 
lace-making.  From  these  studies  they 
proceed  to  drawing  from  nature,  and  to 
what  is  more  difificult,  the  adaption  of  the 
drawings  from  nature  to  lace  designs,  for 
it  is  one  thing  to  create  a  beautiful  flower 
and  leaf  arabesque,  and  quite  another 
thing  to  draw  it  so  that  it  may  be  exprest 
in  thread. 

The  important  classes  in  commerce  and 
English  and  those  in  history  and  religion 


164  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

run  parallel  with  the  studies  in  lace-mak- 
ing and  design. 

Of  great  value  to  these  future  teachers 
of  Belgium  is  the  model  practise  school 
across  the  court  from  the  main  rooms, 
where  at  four  o'clock  each  day  the  poorer 
children  of  the  neighborhood  come  to  be 
taught.  Each  has  her  cushion  and  bobbins 
and  pins  and  thread  furnished  by  the 
Normal,  and  enjoys  all  the  advantages 
offered  by  its  excellent  system;  while  the 
coming  teachers  find  here  the  opportunity 
to  perfect  their  methods. 

I  asked  if  these  teachers  could  look 
confidently  to  finding  positions.  Since 
only  the  initial  class  had  graduated  be- 
fore the  Germans  were  upon  Belgium  and 
since  that  class  was  composed  almost  en- 
tirely of  women  sent  from  the  already 
existing  convent  schools,  who  sought  to 
improve  their  methods,  it  is  as  yet  im- 
possible to  answer  this  question.  But  as 
this  is  the  single  training-school  in  Bel- 


BRUGES  165 

gium  (the  Brussels  School,  so  capably 
directed  by  Mme.  Paulis,  being  chiefly  a 
school  of  design)  there  seems  to  be  every 
reason  to  hope  that  once  the  country  has 
risen  from  the  chaos  into  which  it  has 
been  plunged,  the  Bruges  graduates  will 
have  no  difficulty  in  securing  places. 
Teachers  are  as  yet  very  poorly  paid,  but 
as  regards  salaries,  too,  there  is  reason 
to  hope.  The  ideal  plan  for  a  school 
would  seem  to  be  that  it  should  be  in 
charge  of  a  graduate  of  the  Normal 
School,  while  a  specialist  in  design  from 
the  Brussels  school  should  come  once  a 
week  with  her  charts  and  drawings  to 
give  particular  instruction  in  that  branch. 
The  vital  decision  as  to  the  part  lace- 
making  should  have  in  the  curriculum  of 
the  communal  or  free  public  schools  is 
still  in  abeyance. 

Since  factories  have  killed  the  lace  in- 
dustry in  every  other  city  in  Belgium  ex- 
cept Bruges  and  Turnhout,  people  often 


166  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

ask  if  it  can  persist  much  longer  in 
Bruges.  There  seems  to  be  good  ground 
to  believe  it  will.  Under  the  Germans 
the  port  of  Zeebrugge  acquired  a  momen- 
tary prominence,  but  with  Antwerp  so 
near,  there  seems  little  chance  that  it 
will  ever  become  important,  or  that 
Bruges  herself  may  look  forward  to  any 
large  industrial  development.  Lovely, 
tranquil  city  guarding  a  beauty  of  long 
ago,  it  is  probable  that  Bruges  will  main- 
tain her  right  to  the  title  "Queen  of  Lace 
Cities."  *'Yes,"  M.  Gillemont  de  Cock 
would  add,  seeing  the  patterns  and  qual- 
ity of  the  Valenciennes  and  the  modern 
Old  Flanders  and  Bruges,  and  Binche, 
pinned  to  her  cushions  to-day,  and  re- 
membering the  exquisite  delicate  webs  of 
a  few  decades  ago,  ^'Une  Reine,  Madame, 
c'est  vrai,  mais  une  Reine  bien  malade" 
— "a  Queen,  Madame,  it  is  true,  but  a 
very  sick  Queen."  The  Lace  Normal  and 
other  schools  can  help  greatly  to  re- 
store her. 


VI 
KERXKEN 


1«7 


VI 

KERXKEN 
Sister  Robertine 

ON  a  wet,  cheerless  day  between 
Christmas  and  New  Year's,  I 
started  with  Madame  de  Beughem 
and  Madame  Allard  for  the  most  im- 
portant lace  district  of  Eastern  Flanders. 
The  Alost  region,  which  in  1896  counted 
8,500  workers,  is  known  throughout  the 
lace  world  for  its  Needle  Point  and 
Venise. 

We  went  first  to  Alost  itself,  the  center 
of  the  area,  where,  however,  modern  in- 
dustries have  won  their  already  oft-re- 
peated victory  over  the  lace.  It  was  in 
Alost,  the  i6th  of  November,  1918,  that 

my  car  had  scarcely  been  able  to  push  its 
169 


170  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

way  between  the  two  lines  of  Belgian  sol- 
diers of  deliverance  holding  back  the 
smiling,  tearful  population,  and  where, 
too,  I  passed  Burgomaster  Max  free  after 
four  years  in  prison  in  Germany,  on  his 
way  to  King  Albert  at  the  Army  Head- 
quarters near  Ghent. 

A  short  distance  south  of  Alost  we 
passed  Haltaert,  from  which  this  lace  sec- 
tion might  more  justly  take  its  name, 
since  in  Haltaert  there  is  scarcely  a 
household  without  its  needle  or  bobbin 
workers.  And  but  a  little  farther  south 
lay  Kerxken,  which  even  in  the  rain, 
looked  a  friendly  village  and  where  be- 
side fully  three-fourths  of  the  windows 
women  were  plying  their  needles. 

Before  the  war  companies  of  the  men 
of  this  region  went  to  France  to  work  in 
the  harvest,  as  many  as  40,000  migrating 
annually,  because  even  before  the  war, 
France  was  short-handed  agriculturally 
and    the    French    fields    offered    higher 


KERXKEN  171 

wages  tHan  their  own.  The  women 
and  girls  helped  those  who  remained  to 
gather  the  crops,  and  in  the  fall,  when 
the  men  came  back  and  the  season  for 
working  the  farms  had  passed,  whole 
families  turned  to  lace-making  as  a 
means  of  piecing  out  the  gains  of  the 
summer.  Sometimes  the  men  cared  for 
the  children  or  assisted  with  the  house- 
work so  that  the  women  might  sit  un- 
interruptedly before  their  patterns,  and 
in  certain  instances  they  themselves  made 
lace — the  census  of  1896  lists  117  men 
lace-workers  in  Belgium.  In  Kerxken 
we  found  that  thirty  young  men  who 
had  been  silk  weavers  before  the  war  had 
during  the  occupation  been  able  to  make 
lace — not  true  lace,  but  such  imitations 
as  filet,  really  a  form  of  embroidery. 
They  made,  too.  Application,  not  genuine 
Application  where  true  lace  details,  made 
either  with  the  bobbin  or  needle,  are 
sewed  upon  the  tulle  base,  but  tulle  orna- 


It2  BOBBINS  OF  BELGiml 

merited  with  machine-made  lacets,  narrow 
braids  of  various  sorts  that  come  to  the 
region  from  Calais.  Lacets  usually  have 
a  strong  thread  along  one  edge,  which 
can  be  drawn  so  that  the  braid  may  be 
more  swiftly  fashioned  into  curving 
leaves  or  flowers.  These  distressing 
imitations,  which  unfortunately  pay 
much  better  than  the  true  laces,  since 
they  can  be  made  with  great  speed  and 
find  a  ready  market,  are  a  constant 
menace  to  them.  "Voila  nofre  ennemie!*' 
said  Madame  Allard,  as  we  looked  into 
a  workroom  where  the  table  showed  little 
piles  of  lacet  collars.  The  only  method 
of  fighting  this  enemy  is  through  higher 
wages  for  the  genuine  lace. 

We  could  not  see  Adele  Rulant,  once 
with  hardly  a  peer  in  Needle  Point,  to 
whom  people  from  far  and  near  had  sent 
their  old  pieces,  even  shreds  of  their 
family  treasure,  for  restoration,  knowing 
that  almost  certainly  her  artist's  needle 


KERXKEN  173 

would  recapture  the  lost  mesH  or  flower. 
Adele  Rulant  had  died  and  we  realized 
again  how  surely  one  by  one  the  famous 
dentellieres  of  the  last  half  of  the  19th 
century  are  dropping  out. 

We  turned  down  a  lane  and  were  soon 
at  the  green  door  of  the  convent  of  the 
black-robed  Franciscaine  Sisters,  who 
dismayed,  but  smiling,  hurried  forward 
to  greet  us,  very  fresh  looking  in  their 
white  lined  coiffes  and  collars.  I  say  dis- 
mayed, because  through  an  error  they 
had  expected  us  the  day  before  and  had 
kept  a  fire  burning  for  hours,  a  supreme 
expression  of  hospitality  in  this  bitter, 
coalless  winter;  this  was  Saturday  after- 
noon, there  was  no  fire,  and  the  lace- 
workers  were  at  home  scrubbing  their 
tiled  floors  and  doorsteps.  But  they 
would  light  a  fire  at  once,  and  send  a 
Sister  to  the  nearest  houses  to  recall  at 
least  a  few  of  the  women;  they  would 
prepare  lunch  for  us,   a  plate  of  little 


174  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

cakes  and  a  bottle  of  wine  had  already 
been  set  on  the  table.  Such  an  apologetic 
bustle  of  welcome  was  heart-warming  on 
a  cheerless  day.  Nothing  less,  I  am  cer- 
tain, would  have  made  It  possible  for  me 
to  drink  an  entire  glass  of  sour  red  wine 
at  10.30  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

I  wished  particularly  to  visit  the  con- 
vent because  I  had  known  during  the 
four  years  of  Soeur  Robertine's  suc- 
cessive victories  over  the  Germans.  After 
they  refused  to  let  laces  pass  except 
through  their  hands,  which  taxed  and 
had  frequently  stolen  from  the  parcels, 
time  and  again  she  outwitted  them, 
crossing  the  forbidden  village  frontier 
and  carrying  the  precious  rolls  herself  to 
the  office  of  the  Committee  at  Brussels. 

Beneath  the  calm  of  that  office  there 
was  always  tense  expectancy;  at  any  mo- 
ment anything  might  happen,  even  the 
worst  thing.  One  day  after  weeks  of 
being  entirely  cut  off  from  many  of  their 


KERXKEN  176 

lace  sections,  when  the  women  were  more 
strained  and  anxious  than  ever  before, 
the  door  opened  quietly  and  Soeur 
Robertine,  of  Kerxken,  a  prohibited  dis- 
trict, stood  before  them.  Fear  for  her 
quite  overcame  their  joy  at  seeing  her; 
they  quickly  turned  the  key  and  hurried 
her  into  a  rear  room.  "But  why  have 
you  come  ?  We  did  not  send  for  you — we 
should  never  have  allowed  you  to  take 
such  risks!" 

At  first  only  Soeur  Robertine's  twin- 
kling, keen  gray  eyes  answered,  as  she 
slowly  threw  off  her  long  black  cape  and 
from  beneath  other  garments  began  un- 
winding meter  upon  meter  of  lovely  white 
lace,  till  the  billowy  lengths  covered  all 
the  table.  "It  was  very  simple — I  had  to 
come.  For  weeks  our  thread  has  been 
exhausted;  the  women  are  suffering  for 
need  of  their  earnings.  I  found  a  way, 
and  I'll  find  a  way  back,  never  fear;  we'll 
all  return  safely  to  Kerxken — the  thread 


176  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

and  the  money  and  I — even  tho  we  may 
have  to  slip  in  under  the  very  nose  of 
the  Boche!"  She  was  still  laughing  and 
still  producing  lace,  little  packets  now  of 
square  insets  and  bouquets,  when  I  had 
to  leave. 

It  was  a  delight  to  meet  her  again  here 
freely  directing  her  convent — she  who 
had  so  bravely  held  her  right  to  freedom. 
Her  parents  had  been  shop-keepers  and 
she  had  brought  to  the  Order  a  goodly 
store  of  practical  knowledge  and  a  gen- 
eral alertness  and  good  sense,  which 
added  to  her  unselfishness  and  swift 
sympathy  and  ever-ready  laugh,  easily 
explained  the  admiration  and  affection 
generally  felt  for  her. 

While  we  were  sitting  in  the  large, 
cold  reception  room,  waiting  for  the 
workers  to  re-assemble,  I  asked  Soeur 
Robertine  about  a  painting  over  the  door 
— a  striking  portrait  which  proved  to  be 
that  of  the  Cure  Van  Hoeimessen,  who, 


u 


HANDKERCHIEF    IX    NEEDLE-POINT 

Made   near  .Most.   Both   mesh   and   flowers  made   with   needle 


DETAIL    SHOWING    SEVEN    DIFFERENT    FILLING-IN    STITCHES 


KERXKEN  177 

in  1857,  founded  the  convent  in  an  at- 
tempt to  relieve  the  misery  of  the  village. 
A  short  time  before  this,  greatly  distrest 
by  the  idleness  and  poverty  of  his  par- 
ishioners, he  had  asked  that  a  teacher  be 
sent  to  Kerxken  to  instruct  a  few  girls 
in  the  art  of  lace-making,  and  since  there 
was  no  building  in  which  to  start  a  school, 
he  called  the  class  of  five  or  six  girls  to- 
gether in  his  own  house.  Then,  later,  as 
the  experiment  succeeded,  he  invited  a 
group  of  sisters  to  come  and  founded  for 
them  the  convent  of  the  Franciscaines, 
which  from  that  day  has  held  unswerv- 
ingly to  the  traditions  of  its  foundation 
in  teaching  and  executing  the  fine  needle 
laces.  There  are  at  present  15  sisters, 
and  about  150  true  lace- workers  in  their 
lace  school.  In  addition,  300  makers  of 
filet  and  "imitation"  are  connected  with 
the  convent. 

From  the  salon  we  went  to  the  work- 
room, which  looks  on  a  deep  walled-in 


178  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

garden,  a  treasure-plot  for  potatoes  and 
cabbage  during  the  famine  years.  About 
a  dozen  girls  and  women  had  dropt  their 
brushes  and  brooms  and  hurried  through 
the  rain  in  their  wooden  shoes  to  take  up 
their  patterns  and  go  on  with  the  delicate 
traceries  of  Needle  Point  and  Venise.  It 
was  easy  to  pick  out  their  leader — a 
beautiful  -  faced,  white  -  haired  woman 
wearing  a  black  crochet  cap,  at  work  on 
a  Venise  insertion.  She  was  Sidonie,  the 
best  piqueuse,  or  interpreter  of  design,  in 
the  convent.  There  were  no  cushions 
here,  as  in  the  bobbin-lace  classes,  and 
the  workers  held  the  small,  shining,  black 
cloth  pattern  in  their  hands,  following  the 
pricked  holes  with  their  needles;  there 
were  fewer  of  these  guiding  pin-pricks 
than  in  the  bobbin-lace  picques.  The  pat- 
terns for  Venise  and  Needle  Point  are 
usually  small  because  most  women  object 
to  large  details,  as  difficult  to  turn  in  the 
hand.    Later  in  a  neighboring  convent  I 


KERXKEN  179 

noticed  that  the  patterns  were  consider- 
ably larger  than  those  at  Kerxken,  and 
Sceur  Robertine,  pointing  to  them  said, 
"I  should  have  to  cut  those  in  two  for 
my  girls."  Fortunately  a  detail  can 
usually  easily  be  separated  and  later  re- 
joined. To  protect  her  lace,  the  worker 
covers  it  with  thick  blue  paper,  cutting  a 
hole  about  the  size  of  a  twenty-five-cent 
piece  through  which  the  needle  and 
thread  may  move  freely.  Here  it  was 
not  the  marvel  of  the  flying  fingers,  as  in 
the  bobbin-rooms  at  Turnhout,  that  most 
won  our  admiration,  but  the  skill  in  di- 
recting the  fine  threads  in  complicated  de- 
signs of  incredible  delicacy.  I  chose  to 
sit  beside  fifteen-year-old  Colette  who 
held  the  partly  finished  section  of  a  hand- 
kerchief square  beneath  her  needle.  She 
explained  that  it  was  Point  de  Gaze, 
gauze  point,  a  name  more  recently  given 
the  old  Needle  or  Brussels  Point.  And 
the    fragile    hexagonal    mesh    she    was 


180  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

weaving  between  two  beautiful  full-blown 
roses,  whose  raised  petals  curved  outward 
from  elaborately  worked  centers,  seemed 
most  appropriately  named.  Her  cotton, 
for  Needle  Point  is  made  with  cotton 
thread,  was  so  fine  that  I  could  not, 
despite  her  amused  reiterations,  believe 
it  did  not  break  with  every  second  stitch. 
A  heavier  thread  had  been  used  to  make 
the  flat,  closely  woven  portions  of  the 
flowers,  and  a  still  heavier  one  to  outline 
each  finished  petal  or  leaf  with  the  cor- 
donnet  (cord)  or  hrodc,  produced  by  an 
extremely  firm  and  regular  buttonhole 
stitch.  This  cord  throws  the  flowers  into 
very  brilliant  relief. 

Colette  had  not  woven  the  roses,  for 
because  of  the  difficulty  in  making  it, 
workers  usually  specialize  on  the  various 
individual  parts  composing  this  extremely 
popular  lace.  A  second  girl  had  made 
the  flowers,  and  a  third  the  exquisite 
open-work  details  introduced  to  lighten 


HAN'DKKRCll  IKI       AMI      JKWKL      BOXES,      Fl.  A  X  DKR- 
SATIN     AXl)     VKLVKT 


AXn     VF.XISE     OVER 


KERXKEN  181 

the  whole.  Considerable  freedom  is  al- 
lowed the  lace-worker  in  the  execution 
of  these  open-work  stitches.  If  she  has 
talent  she  may  obtain  many  interesting 
original  results  in  filling  in,  for  there  is 
apparently  no  limit  to  the  number  of 
stitches  she  may  employ.  In  Colette's 
little  handkerchief  square,  I  discovered 
miniature  marguerites  and  stars  and  airy 
balls.  Each  group  had  been  made  by  a 
specialist  (many  women  have  spent  their 
lives  in  making  just  tiny  stars  or  wheels), 
and  sent  to  the  convent  to  be  bound  to- 
gether with  the  leaves  and  roses  into  a 
beautiful  whole  by  the  clear  mesh  that 
dropt  hexagon  by  hexagon  from  Colette's 
swift  needle. 

Colette's  neighbor  was  making  the 
same  mesh,  but  as  a  background  for 
bobbin-made  clusters,  sent  here  from  a 
bobbin-lace  village  to  make  the  rare 
Point  d'Angleterre,  a  small  quantity  of 
which  Kerxken  still  produces. 


182  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

In  the  corner  of  this  class-room  were 
the  shelves  with  the  essential  skeins  of 
thread;  cotton  for  the  Needle  Point,  linen 
for  the  Venise.  The  linen  is  more  and 
more  difficult  to  obtain,  and  since  it  is 
hard  to  handle  and  breaks  easily,  has  been 
largely  supplanted  by  cotton  thread. 
There  were  large  cardboard  boxes  for 
the  drawings  and  the  pricked  working 
patterns;  others  for  the  little  bobbin-lace 
roses  and  leaves  and  vines  that  were  to  be 
worked  into  Brussels  Point;  and  still 
more  boxes  for  the  finished  meters  and 
insets  ready  to  be  sold  to  the  Committee, 
and  later  to  the  dealer  who  will  replace 
the  Committee.  While  we  were  examin- 
ing the  boxes  a  pretty,  dark-haired 
dentelliere  of  about  sixteen  came  in,  with 
work  she  had  finished  at  home,  two  hand- 
kerchiefs with  Brussels  Point  borders, 
and  two  and  a  half  meters  of  Venise,  on 
which  she  had  worked  five  and  a  half 


KERXKEN  183 

months  and  for  which  she  asked  i6o 
francs,  or  $40.00. 

In  the  ''imitation"  room  wc  passed 
quickly  by  the  lengths  of  inferior  filet 
and  the  piles  of  cheap  collars  made  by 
men;  there  was  little  temptation  to  linger 
there.  The  only  defense  against  that 
room  is  more  pay  for  the  work  across  the 
hall. 

We  climbed  the  stairs  shivering  and 
looked  into  the  neat  little  bedrooms  with 
their  white  board  floors,  and  into  the  icy 
chapel  where  Soeur  Robertine  declared 
she  could  be  quite  comfortable  with  only 
a  small  black  woolen  shawl  over  her 
shoulders. 

We  had  brought  our  lunch,  but  were 
not  allowed  to  eat  it.  Sister  A.,  an  ex- 
cellent cook,  had  prepared  hot  soup, 
potatoes  and  meat,  and  a  dried  apple 
mousse  which  we  persuaded  Soeur 
Robertine  to  share  with  us.  And  after 
lunch,  the  orphan  and  refugee  children 


184  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

came  in  to  shake  hands,  also  Janiken,  the 
poor  "idiote"  who  is  forty-nine  years  old, 
but  still  a  child,  with  a  strange,  animal- 
like expression  on  her  face.  Soeur 
Robertine  held  her  hand  for  us  to  shake, 
otherwise  little  Janiken  seemed  able  to  di- 
rect her  own  movements.  She  smiled 
and  chatted  in  Flemish,  then  waddled  off 
quite  happy  with  the  candies  and  cakes 
we  had  brought.  Janiken  spends  her 
days  making  bead  collars  and  bracelets 
for  the  sisters,  whom  she  loves,  and  when 
her  bead  boxes  are  empty  she  places  them 
at  the  foot  of  the  statue  at  the  end  of  the 
narrow  corridor  upstairs,  and  prays  the 
good  Saint  Anthony  to  refill  them,  that 
she  may  weave  more  necklaces.  At  night 
as  the  sisters  pass  silently  by  the  statue, 
they  snap  the  threads  of  their  former 
gifts,  letting  the  beads  shower  into  the 
boxes,  and  in  the  morning  Janiken  is 
happy  again. 

Soeur  Robertine  had  never  ridden  in 


KERXKEN  185 

a  motor,  and  when  we  proposed  that  she 
accompany  us  to  the  Franciscaine  con- 
vent at  Erembodeghem,  not  very  far 
away,  her  eyes  shone.  And  I  shall  not 
forget  the  faces  of  the  others,  as  after  a 
further  bustle  of  leave-takings  and  good 
wishes,  they  leaned  from  the  green  door- 
way in  the  rain,  clasping  their  hands  and 
laughing  and  nodding,  while  we  tucked 
their  beloved  sister  into  our  car.  Soeur 
Robertine  herself  sat  silently  and  ecs- 
tatically in  a  corner,  determined  to  miss 
no  part  of  this  extraordinary  experience. 


VII 
EREMBODEGHEM 


187 


VII 

EREMBODEGHEM 
The  Queen's  Cloth 

EREMBODEGHEM  is  a  commune 
of  about  6,000  inhabitants,  tho  the 
pretty  winding  street  by  which  we 
entered,  with  the  picturesque,  red-tiled 
houses  clustered  irregularly  along  both 
sides  of  it,  suggests  a  smaller  village. 
Nearly  all  the  women  in  this  town,  as  in 
Kerxken,  make  lace,  and  again  it  is  chiefly 
Needle  Point  and  Venise.  The  convent, 
which  furnishes  the  customary  directing 
and  stimulating  center,  has  no  superior 
in  the  country  for  its  particular  laces,  un- 
less one  grants  preference  to  its  own 
mother  house  at  Opbrakel. 

As  we  entered  the  courtyard,  a  group 

189 


190  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

of  French  soldiers  were  warming  them- 
selves before  a  fire  they  had  lighted  be- 
neath a  dripping  canvas  tent-roof 
stretched  across  a  corner  of  the  wall.  In 
the  dreary  rain  the  fire  flaming  against 
the  brick  wall,  and  the  horizon  blue  of 
the  uniforms  were  a  cheery  greeting.  But 
inside  the  convent,  alas,  there  was  less 
cheer;  indeed,  there  was  the  chill  of  the 
tomb,  no  coal  for  the  poor  sisters,  who 
were  for  lack  of  it  unable  to  conduct  the 
regular  school  classes.  They  told  us  of 
their  distress  over  the  idleness  of  the 
children,  who  had  been  turned  into  the 
streets  by  the  Germans  many  weeks  be- 
fore, and  whom  they  were  not  yet  able  to 
reassemble.  "Their  manners  are  already 
so  bad,"  Sister  A.  said,  "that  we  are 
ashamed  to  own  them  as  our  pupils."  The 
Germans  left  the  class-rooms  in  the 
familiar  condition,  and  the  sisters  had  no 
sooner  finished  patching  and  disinfecting, 
than   the    Italian    soldiers   were   billeted 


EREMBODEGHEM  191 

there.  They  were  too  loyal  to  criticise 
but  I  suspect  that  their  experiences  after 
the  departure  of  the  Italians  must  have 
convinced  them  that,  after  all,  a  new 
army  is  just  another  army.  The  French 
followed,  but  they  at  least  were  occupying 
only  four  class-rooms,  and  the  sisters 
were  trying  to  be  optimistic.  "We  be- 
lieve they  must  be  better,"  one  of  them 
said,  with  a  smile ;  ''however,  we  shall  not 
know  until  they  are  gone." 

"At  any  rate,"  she  continued,  "our  lace- 
room  has  not  been  requisitioned ;  we  have 
had  enough  coal  to  keep  a  little  fire  there. 
During  all  the  four  years  that  work  has 
never  stopt."  Since  it  was  Saturday 
afternoon  there  were  many  vacant  chairs 
in  the  class-room,  but  still  enough  girls 
were  present  to  enable  us  to  judge  of  the 
kind  of  lace  school  this  is. 

Little  girls  between  nine  and  ten,  sit- 
ting up  very  straight  in  their  high-backed 
chairs,  were  working  with  swift,  steady 


192  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

fingers  and  already  producing  a  good 
Venise  insertion  of  a  simple  leaf  pattern. 
Several  of  the  other  girls  were  busy  with 
the  now  well-known  Venetian  PoinI 
medallions  representing  the  arms  of  the 
Allied  nations,  and  the  provinces  of  Bel- 
gium; still  others  were  executing  flower 
details  for  yard  lace.  All  this  Venise  they 
were  making  with  a  needle  and  single 
linen  thread,  for  this  convent  works  ex- 
clusively with  linen  thread.  They  were 
handling  the  black  cloth  patterns,  eight  to 
ten  inches  wide,  with  apparent  ease,  turn- 
ing them  with  almost  every  stitch.  This 
mere  mastery  of  the  pattern  is  in  itself 
impressive. 

In  a  corner,  near  one  of  the  great  win- 
dows overlooking  the  walled-in  winter 
garden,  a  slim,  darkly  clad  girl  about  six- 
teen was  absorbed  in  pricking  a  compli- 
cated pattern.  Sister  A.  led  me  a  little 
aside  to  explain  that  this  was  their  feeble- 
minded girl  and  that  tho  they  could  not 


VENISE    BANQUET    CLOTH     PRESENTED    BY    THE    LACE    Cm.) 

Design  by  M.  de  Rudder;  executed  by  tll^ 


I 


I)  H.M.  QUEEN  ELIZABETH  ON   HER  RETURN   FROM   EXILE 

l/'enise-makers  in  Belgium  in  six  months 


EREMBODEGHEM  193 

explain  it,  she  was  able  to  interpret  cor- 
rectly very  difficult  drawings. 

At  the  Committee  Bureau  I  had  seen 
many  of  the  wonderful  cloths  made  from 
Venise  details  from  this  convent  (among 
them  the  cloth  typifying  the  burning 
cities,  presented  to  Mrs.  Hoover),  but  I 
had  never  imagined  anything  so  lovely  as 
the  exhibit  the  sisters  had  been  arranging 
on  the  long,  low  table,  while  we  were 
passing  from  chair  to  chair  following  the 

magic  needles We  turned  to  find 

the  separate  parts  of  a  banquet  cloth  to 
be  offered  to  Queen  Elizabeth  on  her  re- 
turn from  exile,  assembled  for  us.  Two 
hundred  and  twenty  details,  there  were,  on 
which  during  the  darkest  days  of  the  war, 
women  had  worked  with  unfaltering  faith 
and  love.  M.  de  Rudder,  a  well-known 
Belgian  artist,  had  drawn  the  design  for 
the  Lace  Committee.  The  border,  edged 
with  ivy,  the  symbol  of  endurance,  is  com- 
posed of  ferns  and  wild  flowers,  eels  and 


194  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

sea-weed,  suggesting  the  forests  and  fields 
and  waters  of  Belgium.  Adjoining  them 
are  the  coats  of  arms  of  destroyed  cities, 
bordered  by  a  band  of  lilies  of  the  valley, 
signifying  the  return  of  happiness.  In  the 
center,  the  four  patron  saints  of  Brussels, 
Saints  Michel  and  George,  and  Saints 
Elizabeth  and  Gudule,  are  enwreathed 
with  olive  branches.  Saint  Elizabeth, 
above  the  Red  Cross,  represents  the  Queen 
and  her  devoted  service  as  nurse  during 
the  war,  while  the  eight  medallions  near 
her  carry  the  names  of  the  Beatitudes. 
Opposite  Saint  Elizabeth  is  Saint  George, 
who  represents  King  Albert.  Below  him 
is  the  Belgian  decoration  for  bravery,  and 
in  the  surrounding  medallions  are  woven 
the  names  of  battles  won  by  him.  Be- 
tween Saint  Elizabeth  and  Saint  George, 
are  the  immortal  words  spoken  by  His 
Majesty  as  he  went  from  the  Chamber, 
sword  in  hand,  on  the  4th  of  August, 
1914:  ^Tai  foi  dans  nos  destinees!     Un 


EREMBODEGHEM  196 

pays  qui  se  defend  s'impose  au  respect 
de  tons,  ce  pays  ne  perit  pas!"  It  is  one 
thing  to  mention  a  few  of  the  two  hun- 
dred and  twenty  details  of  this  glorious 
cloth,  it  is  quite  another  to  hold  any 
one  of  them  in  one's  hand  and  realize 
its  perfection,  its  incredible  combination 
of  softness  and  delicacy  and  firmness  and 
regularity.  The  twelve  sisters  gathered 
happily  about  us,  as  we  sat  before  the 
table  quite  breathless  over  the  discovery 
of  one  new  beauty  after  another  in  their 
truly  royal  gift. 

And  then  they  brought  us  something 
much  less  important,  but  nevertheless  ex- 
quisite, the  work  of  Sister  S.,  which  they 
show  rarely,  a  length  of  Rose  Point  about 
four  inches  wide,  and  which  even  the 
women  of  the  Committee  after  their  long 
years'  constant  experience  in  lace,  said 
they  had  never  seen  surpassed.  The  linen 
thread  ordinarily  used  in  Venise  runs 
from  Number  200  to  Number  300.    This 


196  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

lace,  whose  base  is  formed  by  an  ethereal 
interlacing  of  vines  and  tendrils,  is  made 
with  Number  2000.  One  can  work  on 
it  scarcely  more  than  two  or  three  hours 
a  day,  and  then  only  under  the  best  light. 
Sister  S.  brought  me  the  magnifying- 
glass,  without  which  I  could  not  have  fol- 
lowed the  exquisitely  varied  points,  and 
lifted  the  infinitesimal  petals  of  the  tiny 
flowers  incrusting  the  background  of  in- 
terwoven tendrils.  In  some  of  these 
microscopic  blooms  were  as  many  as  four 
layers  of  petals.  It  would  be  useless  to 
attempt  to  describe  the  loveliness  that  re- 
sults from  the  blending  of  the  background 
of  vines  and  lifted  blossoms.  I  asked 
what  a  meter  of  such  lace  would  bring 
and  learned  that  it  will  probably  be  sold 
in  Paris  for  1,000  francs,  tho  these  sis- 
ters would  be  happy  to  guard  it  as  one 
of  their  convent  treasures. 

We  had  intended  going  into  some  of 
the   neighborhood   houses   to   watch   the 


w   S 


EREMBODEGHEM  lOt 

work  of  the  older  women,  but  it  seemed 
impossible  to  look  at  any  other  lace  that 
day  and  we  said  good-by.  And  while 
the  chauffeur  brushed  away  the  small 
boys  clinging  to  or  crawling  over  the  car, 
we  again  tucked  our  sister  in,  to  carry 
her  home  to  Kerxken ;  it  had  been  a  great 
day  for  Soeur  Robertine  and  for  us. 


VIII 
OPBRAKEL 


199 


VIII 

OPBRAKEU 

Mother  House  of  a  Famous  Lace-making 
Order 

AFTER  Kerxken  and  Erembodeghem 
I  was  not  surprized,  when  in- 
quiring about  needle  laces  further  south, 
to  learn  that  the  only  school  whose 
work  could  dispute  first  place  with 
them  was  that  of  the  mother  house  of 
the  same  order  at  Opbrakel.  I  had  come 
to  know  that  the  finest  needle  laces  of 
Belgium  are  made  in  these  convents  of 
the  Soeurs  Franciscaines. 

It  was  a  bitter  day,  but  I  determined 
to    reach    Opbrakel    despite    shell-pitted 
roads  and  rain.    I  succeeded  even  in  mak- 
ing a  short  stop  on  the  way  at  Cruys- 
201 


202  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

hautem  Convent,  famous,  too,  for  its 
Needle  Point,  where  the  sisters  would 
have  detained  me  longer  to  describe  again 
and  again  the  entry  of  the  American  sol- 
diers at  9  o'clock  in  the  morning  on  All 
Saints  Day — the  wonderful  American 
soldiers  who  had  arrived  to  free  them 
from  their  oppressors  of  four  years,  and 
who  had  remained  to  buy  every  scrap  of 
lace  in  the  convent,  carrying  away  the 
address  with  the  promise  to  send  for 
more. 

In  my  journeying  I  discovered  a  pretty 
way  of  learning  whose  army  occupied  a 
particular  village — I  looked  for  the  first 
small  boy  to  see  which  soldier's  cap  he 
proudly  wore.  Thus  at  Opbrakel,  tho  it 
was  late  afternoon  when  I  arrived,  there 
were  children  still  playing  in  the  street, 
and  the  boys  jauntily  wearing  the  hori- 
zontal blue  announced  to  me  that  the 
French  were  there.  These  small  boys, 
and    later    the    soldiers    themselves,    ex- 


OPBRAKEL  20^ 

amined  my  mud-splashed  car  with  much 
curiosity,  as  it  drew  up  in  front  of  the 
convent  door. 

My  visit  was  quite  unannounced,  but 
the  sisters  held  out  their  hands  in  wel- 
come, and  drew  me  in  out  of  the  rain, 
speaking,  as  they  did  so,  words  I  had 
almost  forgotten,  "Hot  milk;  you  must 
drink  a  cup  of  hot  milk  at  once,  Madame, 
and  your  chauffeur  also;  this  is  a  cruel 
day  for  journeying."  They  led  me  to  a 
little  room,  where  I  found  another  unac- 
customed comfort,  a  tiny  fire  burning 
brightly.  As  I  sat  before  it,  sipping  the 
sweet  milk,  the  first  I  had  had  since  leav- 
ing America,  I  remembered  the  grati- 
tude of  travelers  in  the  middle  ages 
toward  the  convents  and  abbeys  whose 
doors  they  found  open.  The  war  had 
brought  a  return  of  many  of  the  difficul- 
ties and  perils  that  beset  them,  with  the 
comfortable  hostelries  of  pre-war  days 
pillaged  and  ruined,  the  little  restaurants 


204  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

or  cafes  that  could  do  business  filled  to 
overflowing  with  soldiers  (I  have  spent 
hours  in  the  wind  and  rain  at  night 
vainly  trying  to  find  a  bed,  or  a  place  for 
my  car),  with  roads  wrecked,  neither 
post  nor  telegraph,  nor  train,  and  natural 
accompaniment  of  all  this  disorganiza- 
tion, the  necessity  of  being  ever  on  guard 
against  thieves — in  the  midst  of  condi- 
tions like  these  we  can  appreciate  the 
meaning  of  the  cheering  hospitality  the 
convent  offers. 

While  we  sat  before  the  fire  the  Mother 
Superior  had  one  of  the  sisters  show  me  a 
treasure  of  the  school,  a  framed  exhibit, 
illustrating  in  miniature  all  the  processes 
employed  in  the  making  of  the  needle 
laces,  which  they  had  prepared  for 
the  last  International  Exposition  at 
Brussels.  Then  she  recounted  for  me  a 
little  of  the  history  of  her  lace-making 
convent,  which  celebrates  its  centenary 
this  year,  this  free  year  of  1919.    I  could 


OPBRAKEL  206 

imagine  what  it  would  have  meant  to  try 
to  be  joyful  over  such  an  anniversary 
with  the  enemy  heel  still  on  one's  back. 
One  hundred  years  ago  the  commune 
of  Opbrakel  was  in  such  a  wretched  state 
of  poverty  and  misery  that  among  its 
2,000  inhabitants,  800  were  beggars ;  and 
as  often  happened  elsewhere  during  the 
period  of  suffering  following  the  Na- 
poleonic wars,  the  cure  of  the  commune 
sought  to  relieve  it  by  founding  a  con- 
vent which  should  teach  the  art  of  lace- 
making,  to  furnish  a  means  of  earning 
bread.  He  called  the  Franciscaine  Sisters 
who  soon  had  100  pupils  in  their  lace- 
classes,  and  among  them  a  number  of 
boys.  From  those  days  to  these,  lace- 
making  in  this  convent  has  never  ceased; 
there  are  now  not  more  than  125  pupils 
in  the  excellent  school,  but  in  the  homes 
of  the  entire  region  are  those  who  have 
learned  their  art  there.  The  sisters 
taught  first,  Chantilly  (Opbrakel  is  very 


206  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

near  Grammont,  the  Belgian  home  of 
Chantilly),  but  about  fifty  years  ago 
changed  from  bobbin  to  needle  lace,  and 
since  about  twelve  years  ago,  they  have 
specialized  on  the  particular  needle  lace, 
Venetian  Point,  in  which  they  are  unex- 
celled. Few  of  the  enraptured  tourists  in 
Venise  realize  that  the  laces  they  are  buy- 
ing there  were  very  probably  made  in 
Flanders ! 

Important  lace  schools  and  work-rooms 
have  from  time  to  time  concentrated  all 
their  skill  on  the  production  of  a  master- 
piece that  might  represent  them  to  the 
world  and  awaken  wide  interest  and  ap- 
proval. We  have  a  long  list  of  such 
chefs-d'oeuvres  from  the  lace-rooms  of 
Belgium,  of  lovely  scarfs  and  cloths 
and  robes  offered  to  sovereigns  or  dis- 
tinguished patrons.  And  happily  during 
the  war  the  Committee  could  encourage 
this  practise  by  giving  orders  or  special 
"commands"  to  be  executed  as  gifts  for 


OPBRAKEL  207 

benefactors.  Several  of  these  presenta- 
tion pieces  will  have  enduring  value  his- 
torically as  well  as  artistically. 

More  than  one  command  fell  to  the 
share  of  Opbrakel,  and  among  others  that 
for  a  scarf  offered  to  the  Queen  of  Hol- 
land in  appreciation  of  her  country's 
generosity  to  Belgians  within  Dutch 
borders.  The  dentellieres,  each  proud  to 
be  selected  for  the  royal  task,  worked 
many  months  on  the  countless  exquisite 
needle  points  in  this  delicate  veil.  On  the 
scarf  ends  they  united  the  arms  of  Holland 
and  Belgium,  engarlanding  them  with 
hyacinths  and  tulips,  the  Dutch  national 
flowers,  and  about  these  in  turn  they  wove 
lilies  of  the  valley,  symbolizing  the  return 
of  happiness.  Below  the  medallion  rest  the 
Belgian  provinces,  enchained,  and  above 
them  they  represented  the  children  of 
Holland  showering  flowers  of  abundance 
upon  the  martyred  children  of  their  sis- 
ter kingdom. 


208  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

It  would  have  been  pleasant  to  talk  of 
other  master-works,  but  we  had  already 
sat  too  long  before  the  fire  and  we 
hurried  now  to  reach  the  large,  airy  class- 
room across  the  court  before  dark.  When 
starting  on  my  lace  journey,  I  had  been 
warned  that,  once  I  had  visited  the 
bobbin-lace  work-room  with  all  the  pic- 
turesqueness  of  the  cushion  with  its 
mounds  of  bobbins  and  clustered  pins, 
and  of  the  flying  fingers  and  the  con- 
tinuous cadences  of  the  clinking  wood,  I 
would  find  needle-lace  classes  uninterest- 
ing. In  the  beginning  this  was  true; 
there  was  nothing  particularly  dramatic 
or  stirring  in  a  great  room  filled  with 
girls  and  young  women  holding  little 
black  paper  patterns  in  their  hands  and 
plying  a  needle  above  them.  But  the 
more  I  watched  these  little  patterns  and 
the  fingers  directing  the  needle  and 
thread,  the  more  marvelous  the  ac- 
complishment appeared — cotton  and  linen 


s>  . 

«  -a  o 

<     a;   !- 

m    X  O 


as    V-   V 

D  p  ^: 

000 


rt   o 
>   u 

b£  be 


o  c 

a.  - 


OPBRAKEL  209 

so  fine  that  it  seemed  impossible  that  any 
finger  should  control  them — cobwebby, 
diaphanous  meshes,  richly  petalled  tiny 
flowers,  and  delicately  veined  leaves 
growing  beneath  just  a  common  needle 
and  a  single  thread.  In  the  end  I  looked 
eagerly  for  the  needle  rooms. 

And  this  was  the  most  rewarding  one 
I  had  yet  visited.  It  happened  that  the 
majority  of  the  pupils  were  busy  on  the 
details  of  a  tablecloth  recently  designed 
by  Madame  Allard,  in  which  the  linen 
center  is  encircled  by  a  family  of  little 
beasts  as  gay  as  any  ever  gathered  to- 
gether to  cheer  a  dinner  company.  I 
laughed  outright,  as  a  little  girl,  herself 
laughing,  held  up  an  exquisitely  worked 
and  most  vividly  real  group  of  happy 
ducks  floating  on  a  pond.  The  next 
showed  her  enchanting  rabbits,  another 
her  deer — all  along  the  line  they  were 
chuckling  over  the  success  of  their  par- 
ticular pets.    They  had  captured  the  sun- 


^10  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

shine  and  happy  motion  of  a  farm- 
yard world  with  just  a  needle  and  a 
single  linen  thread!  Here,  as  at  Erem- 
bodeghem,  only  linen  thread  is  used,  be- 
cause tho  it  is  more  difficult  to  handle, 
it  produces  a  finer  and  stronger  lace  than 
cotton.  After  several  months  (it  took 
six  months  to  execute  the  first  cloth  of 
this  design)  the  details  would  be  as- 
sembled and  joined  by  special  workers, 
following  the  large  paper  pattern  the 
sisters  were  now  spreading  across  a  table, 
which  had  been  sent  down  to  Opbrakel 
from  the  room  of  design  at  Brussels. 
And  the  finished  cloth,  as  delightful  as 
an  early  naive  tapestry  with  its  smiling 
animals,  would  be  sent  to  the  Committee 
for  sale. 

Opbrakel  stands  unquestionably  first  in 
Belgium  in  the  production  of  figures  in 
Point  de  Venise.  During  the  war,  its 
workers  have  repeated  several  times  for 
the  Committee  their  beautiful  ''Fables  de 


OPBRAKEL  211 

La  Fontaine"  series  of  medallions,  as  well 
as  those  which  represent  so  charmingly 
"Little  Red  Riding-Hood,"  "Puss  in 
Boots,"  "The  Sleeping  Beauty,"  and 
other  much  loved  fairy-tale  figures. 
These  medallions  have  been  sold  sepa- 
rately as  doilies,  or  have  been  combined 
with  Flanders  lace  or  linen  in  handsome 
cloths. 

It  was  fast  growing  dark,  and  the  125 
girls  began  folding  their  patterns,  and 
carefully  wrapping  their  delicately  pic- 
tured little  rabbits  and  ducks  to  keep 
them  clean  till  the  morrow;  maids  ap- 
peared with  dust-pans  and  brooms,  and 
we  gathered  up  our  skirts  and  stept  out 
into  the  courtyard.  As  we  crossed  it  in 
the  dark  and  the  rain  it  was  difficult  to 
refuse  the  further  hospitality  of  these 
sisters,  who  would  have  kept  me  for  the 
night. 


IX 
LIEDEKERKE 


21S 


IX 

LIEDEKERKE 
The  Last  Lace  Stronghold  of  Brabant 

IN  the  court  in  front  of  the  big  brick 
convent  building  with  its  odd  Httle 
steeple,  two  sisters,  skirts  tucked  up, 
and  pails  swung  over  their  shoulders, 
Chinese  fashion,  were  about  to  begin  the 
Saturday  scrubbing.  Madame  Kefer- 
Mali  and  I  were  on  our  way  to  Liede- 
kerke,  the  principal  remaining  lace  center 
in  Brabant,  and  had  stopt  in  this  less  im- 
portant village  of  Heckelgem  for  a  look 
at  the  convent  school  opened  nine  years 
ago. 

In  the  village  itself  we  had  found  about 
150  of  the   2,000   inhabitants  busy   with 

215 


»16  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

their  needles,  for  this  is  distinctly  a 
needle-lace  commune,  producing  a  fairly 
good  quality  of  Venise.  Which  means 
that  there  are  as  yet  no  local  mills,  and 
tho  an  adjacent  match  factory  has  al- 
ready attracted  a  number  of  Heckelgem 
girls,  most  of  the  women  are  still  con- 
tent to  spend  their  time  making  Venise, 
which  they  take  to  the  convent,  to  be  sold 
there  to  Brussels  or  other  agents. 

The  convent  class-rooms  were  warm 
and  cheery;  fern  baskets  hung  from  the 
ceilings  and  every  window  was  gay  with 
potted  plants.  Practically  all  the  village 
children  were  gathered  inside,  and  since 
it  was  II  o'clock  when  we  arrived,  were 
happily  engaged  in  drinking  their  daily 
Comite  National  cup  of  cocoa  and  in  eat- 
ing the  good  white  biscuit  that  goes  with 
it.  Saturday  morning  is  mending  time 
and  on  the  girls'  desks  I  saw  more  of 
those  amazing  patchwork  socks  and 
stockings,    the   result   of   three   or    four 


^£saA<i:<^.  L'^< Jit JTc 


^ 


NEEDLE-POINT   SCARF  EXPRESSING   GRATITUDE  OF  BELi 

Executed  by  30  \ 


I  AND,    PRESENTEn    TO    H.M.    QUEEX     WIITTELM I X  A 

I'^lit  months 


LIEDEKERKE  «17 

years'  weekly  attempts  to  hold  them  to- 
gether. 

In  the  advanced  lace  class-room,  thirty 
girls,  between  thirteen  and  sixteen,  were 
working  with  cotton  thread  on  Venise 
insertions  and  on  details  for  larger 
pieces.  They  had  come  at  8  o'clock  that 
morning,  a  more  humane  beginning  hour 
than  most  schools  allow,  and  would  re- 
main as  long  as  there  was  daylight — 
looping  and  weaving  with  a  needle  and 
single  thread.  I  stopt  beside  Rosalie, 
who  was  making  a  pretty  flower  detail 
for  a  cushion  cover.  She  had  begun  it 
five  days  before  and  hoped  to  finish,  and 
receive  the  seven  francs  she  was  allowed 
for  it,  that  night. 

On  the  table  was  a  pile  of  chairbacks 
in  Venise,  with  figure  centers  and  sur- 
rounding garlands  of  flowers  all  con- 
nected by  the  bars  characterizing  this 
lace — an  order  for  a  Brussels  dealer,  who 
had  recently  ofifered  fifty-two  francs  each 


218  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

for  them.  The  sisters  were  excited  and 
happy  over  this  new  price,  which  was  con- 
siderably more  than  anything  Heckelgem 
has  hitherto  been  able  to  command,  one 
and  a  half  francs  a  day  having  been  the 
average  wage  of  the  best  workers. 

A  little  farther  to  the  south  and  still 
in  Brabant,  tho  it  lies  near  the  Flanders 
border,  is  the  much  better  known  con- 
vent of  Liedekerke,  which  boasts  an  un- 
broken record  of  sixty  years  of  lace-mak- 
ing, and  which  before  the  war  received 
a  yearly  subsidy  of  800  francs  from  the 
''Amies  de  la  Dentelle."  As  we  walked 
beside  the  pretty  orchard  and  vegetable 
garden,  bright  with  purple  cabbages, 
that  form  the  entrance  court,  toward  the 
rather  impressive  red-brick  buildings, 
again  with  their  odd  miniature  steeple,  I 
saw  the  great  arms  of  a  Dutch  windmill 
turning  lazily  somewhere  in  the  rear. 
And  nearer  the  door,  off  at  the  left  in  a 
side  court,  a  war-kitchen  with  tiled  floor 


LIEDEKERKE  219 

and  uncertain  roof,  where  hundreds  of 
the  village  poor  still  were  coming  for  their 
daily  pint  of  soup.  Of  the  4,000  inhabi- 
tants as  many  as  2,900  were  forced  on  to 
the  soup-line  during  the  occupation. 

This,  then,  was  one  of  the  important 
and  successful  convent  schools  of  Bel- 
gium; but  in  January,  1919,  it  was  in  a 
much  sadder  plight  than  the  little  neigh- 
boring school  at  Heckelgem.  There  was 
no  coal,  not  a  class  was  in  session,  not  a 
child  at  work  with  her  bobbins.  At  4 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  on  Monday,  Oc- 
tober 28,  when  there  were  between  800 
and  900  children,  among  them  100  lace- 
workers,  gathered  in  the  various  class- 
rooms, German  officers  had  appeared  to 
announce  that  by  7  o'clock  the  rooms 
must  be  cleared  of  both  teachers  and 
children.  I  had  already  had  many  dem- 
onstrations of  what  taking  possession  of 
school-rooms  meant.  It  was  not  neces- 
sary that  the  sisters  should  lead  me  from 


^20  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

room  to  room,  pointing  out  this  or  that 
ruined  wall,  or  casement  torn  away,  or 
vacant  space  where  the  benches  or  chairs 
burned  as  firewood,  once  stood ;  but  I  fol- 
lowed them  about  for  their  own  sakes. 
There  was  at  least  a  kind  of  comfort  in 
being  able  to  furnish  proof  of  these  out- 
rages to  somebody. 

One  small  room  was  undisturbed,  but  it 
was  a  sadder  room  than  any  of  the  others. 
The  primary  lace-class  had  occupied  it, 
and  several  rows  of  little  girls  were 
learning  to  make  their  first  flowers  and 
leaves  when  the  enemy  drove  them  out. 
The  baby  chairs  and  the  cushions  were 
just  as  they  left  them,  tho  thick  dust 
dulled  the  blue  of  the  linen  covers  and 
the  tiny  unfinished  white  roses  and  ten- 
drils held  by  the  rusty  pins.  One  would 
have  liked  to  bring  the  enemy  mothers 
Into  this  room  with  its  baby  chairs,  and 
its  dust-covered  unfinished  roses. 

In  the  large  adjoining  hall  Sister  M. 


LIEDEKERKE  221 

•kindly  came  .to  work  at  a  table,  on  Ap- 
plication, one  of  the  laces  for  which 
Liedekerke  has  been  especially  distin- 
guished. Before  the  English  invention, 
early  in  1800,  of  •  machine-made  tulle, 
which  'had  an  incalculable  influence  on 
the  development  of  the  lace-industry,  all 
meshes  had  to  be  made  either  with  the 
needle  or  with  bobbins.  The  factory  sub- 
stitute for  these  difficult  processes  won 
instant  favor,  and  with  the  general  public 
■the  more  swiftly  made  and  cheaper  tulle 
Application,  supplanted  the  exquisite 
Point  d'Angleterre,  which  it  imitated. 
Liedekerke,  for  example,  had  begun  its 
lace  career  with  Point  d'Angleterre,  and 
in  changing  later  to  Application,  was 
merely  responding  to  popular  demand. 
Its  sixty  years  of  lace-history  reads: 
Point  d'Angleterre,  Application,  Rosaline. 
These  things  Madame  Kefer-Mali  ex- 
plained, as  Sister  M.  was  placing  her 
square  of  blue  paper  on  the  linen  of  the 


222  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

table  cushion,  and  then  the  bobbin-made 
bouquet,  wrong  side  up  on  the  blue  square, 
pinning  it  carefully  and  smoothly  through 
the  paper  to  the  cushion.  Over  this  she 
stretched  her  scarf  length  of  tulle.  I 
was  surprized  at  the  time  and  painstak- 
ing effort  she  gave  to  these  simple  opera- 
tions, until  I  saw  later  the  effect  of  the 
slightest  carelessness  on  the  finished 
flounce.  Almost  any  clever  needle- 
woman can  join  a  flower  to  a  piece  of 
tulle — but  only  an  artist  can  produce  a 
beautiful  scarf  or  veil  in  Application. 
Once  the  bouquet  was  properly  placed 
and  pinned.  Sister  M.  began  to  sew,  lift- 
ing the  tulle  lightly  with  each  stitch,  and 
smoothly  attaching  all  the  edges,  for  this 
bouquet  was  being  appliqued  on  the  body 
of  the  scarf.  Had  it  formed  the  border 
one  edge  would  have  remained  free. 

Liedekerke  Convent,  to  which  some 
200  of  the  villagers  bring  their  laces  and 
which  once  made  little  else  than  Applica- 


LIEDEKERKE  22S 

tion  (many  beautiful  robes  and  flounces 
and  scarfs  have  gone  out  from  the  com- 
mune and  the  school),  now  makes  com- 
paratively little  of  it;  for  during  the  last 
six  years  Paris  and  other  markets  have 
asked  for  Rosaline.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
this  small  quantity  may  be  continued,  and 
that  the  lace  world  may  still  win  at  least 
a  few  pieces  yearly  of  the  earlier,  more 
exquisite  Point  d'Angleterre. 

Point  d'Angleterre,  so  named  because 
of  its  great  popularity  in  England, 
reached  its  height  in  beauty  and  in  favor 
during  the  seventeenth  century,  when  it 
occupied  the  talent  and  energy  of  all  the 
lace-workers  of  Brussels.  It  differs  from 
Needle  Point,  in  which  both  flowers  and 
mesh  are  made  with  the  needle.  It  is 
one  of  the  loveliest  of  all  laces,  combin- 
ing in  rare  beauty,  rich  bouquets  and 
arabesques  and  birds  of  finest  bobbin 
work,  with  a  frail  transparent  needle 
mesh,   the   flowers   themselves   becoming 


224  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

frequently  more  light  and  delicate  through 
the  introduction  of  charmingly  varied 
needle-worked  open  spaces.  Certain 
workers  make  the  flowers,  and  others  the 
connecting  mesh.  If  one  can  imagine  the 
softness  of  a  kind  of  sublimated  or 
diaphanous  velvet,  added  to  the  fragility 
of  an  airy  and  cobwebby  lace,  one  may 
have  some  idea  of  the  effect  of  good 
Point  d'Angleterre.  And  if  one  would 
possess  a  collar  or  a  flounce,  one  should 
buy  it  quickly,  for  Point  d'Angleterre  is 
going  the  way  of  the  other  difficult  and 
exquisite  points.  Such  villages  as 
Kerxken,  Liedekerke,  Destelbergen  (near 
Ghent),  and  those  of  the  Alost  region 
still  make  occasional  pieces. 

The  more  ordinary  Point  de  Flandres, 
or  Flanders,  so  generally  produced  to- 
day, has  the  same  composition  as  Point 
d'Angleterre,  since  in  it  bobbin-work 
flowers  are  joined  by  a  needle-mesh.  And 
even   tho   coarser   and   less   complicated 


HOHlilN    LACES 

(1)  Maliiies.     (2)  Aiiplication.  flowers  sewn  on  tulle 
(3)     Onrliessi'.    with    needle-point    insertions 


APPLirATTON     HETAILS    TO    BE    SEWED    ON    TULLE 

Upper  flnwcr  shows  oi;cn   spaces  left  hv  l)nl)I)in  worker  for  needle 
worker:  lower  Hmvcr  shows  hnth  hohhin  and  needle  work  completed 


LIEDEKERKE  226 

than  Point  d'Angleterre,  Point  de 
Flandres  is  also  difficult  to  make,  and 
should  be  much  better  paid.  There  are 
innumerable  differences  in  quality,  and 
many  ways  in  which  this  lace  may  be  em- 
ployed. The  Committee  has  used  it 
chiefly  in  elegant  table  centers  and  cloths, 
in  lamp-shades  and  in  various  articles  to 
embellish  a  drawing-  or  dining-room. 
And  this  summer  of  19 19  it  is  being  used 
with  much  success  by  important  French 
houses  as  trimming  for  dainty  ninon  un- 
derclothing. Nineteenth  century  Point  de 
Flandres,  then,  is  little  more  than  a  com- 
mercial name  for  a  very  coarse  kind  of 
Point  d'Angleterre. 

This  Point  de  Flandres  must  not  be 
confused  with  Old  Flanders  or  Antik,  the 
ancient  bobbin-lace  experiencing  a  happy 
revival  at  present.  Old  Flanders  is,  like 
Cluny,  made  entirely  with  bobbins  and 
with  uncut  threads;  in  other  words,  in 


226  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

single  lengths,  and  not  in  separate  or  cut 
details. 

Liedekerke,  then,  first  made  Point 
d'Angleterre  for  which,  after  a  certain 
time,  it  substituted  Application,  changing 
again  about  two  years  before  the  war  to 
Rosaline,  suddenly  become  a  popular  lace. 

Rosaline  is  not  very  different  in  ap- 
pearance from  the  finer  varieties  of 
Bruges;  in  fact,  it  employs  much  the 
same  technique,  and  is  made  as  is  Bruges 
with  bobbins,  in  small  pieces,  which  are 
later  joined  by  special  workers.  A 
dentelliere  who  can  make  fine  Bruges  can 
usually  make  Rosaline.  Each  small 
piece  is  composed  of  elaborately  inter- 
lacing flowers  and  leaves  and  arabesques, 
without  a  connecting  mesh,  but  joined 
by  brides  or  bars,  with  a  picot  edge. 
Sometimes  the  tiny  incrustations  called 
pearls,  common  to  Burano  lace,  are 
added,  to  further  ornament  the  richly 
covered  ground. 


LIEDEKERKE  5^27 

I  watched  a  Rosaline  cushion,  on  which 
the  pattern  of  an  arabesque  detail  was 
pinned,  and  Sister  A.,  as  she  began  to 
shift  in  pairs  the  fourteen  bobbins  needed 
to  execute  it;  one  pair,  the  voyageurs, 
were  continually  traveling  from  right  to 
left  and  back  again  as  she  wove  the  flat 
parts  of  the  leaves  and  blossoms.  The 
Rosaline  technique  is  particularly  difficult, 
since  the  pins  must  be  continually  and 
rapidly  changed  as  the  worker,  with  a 
crochet-hook,  lifts  the  thread  to  pass  her 
bobbin  through  in  the  characteristic  loop 
stitch.  This  delicate  operation,  con- 
stantly repeated,  strains  both  eyes  and 
nerves.  The  pins  are  placed  along  the 
outside  edge  of  the  flowers,  instead  of  in- 
side, as  in  Bruges,  which  produces  the 
picot  or  looped-edge  effect  of  Rosaline. 
In  Bruges  the  flower  edges  are  even. 

I  turned  from  the  arabesques  just  be- 
ginning to  grow  on  the  cushion,  to  a 
lovelv   little    finished    detail,    about    four 


228  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

inches  square,  one  of  several  in  a  box 
which  was  to  hold  them  till  they  could 
be  joined  to  make  a  scarf.  It  had  taken 
seven  days  of  thirteen  hours  each  to 
make  this  four  by  four  piece,  which  meant 
that  the  maximum  a  skilled  worker  could 
earn  in  executing  it  was  about  two  francs 
a  day. 

The  Liedekerke  convent  school  does  not 
accept  children  under  twelve  for  more 
than  two  complete  afternoons  a  week  and 
for  more  than  one  hour  each  of  the  other 
days,  these  hours  being  lengthened  grad- 
ually until  the  girl  of  sixteen  gives  her 
entire  time  to  her  lace.  The  sisters  hope 
that  once  they  find  coal  and  thread  and 
can  put  their  class-room  in  order,  they 
may  again  have  lOO  pupils,  and  that  the 
village  may  continue  to  count  at  least 
200  good  dentellieres. 


X 

HERZELE 


889 


HERZELE 

A  Chateau  of  Refuge 

THERE  are  certain  chateaux  in  Bel- 
gium that  will  be  remembered 
throughout  this  century  as  harbors  of 
refuge;  they  dared  not  flare  beacons 
from  their  roofs,  but  during  four  dark 
years,  people  of  the  nearby  communes 
knew  that  day  and  night  lights  burned 
there  for  them.  The  chateau  of  the 
Comte  du  Pare  was  such  a  one,  a  prop- 
erty lying  on  the  edge  of  the  village  of 
Herzele,  south  of  Alost,  which,  tho  the 
house  itself  is  unpretentious,  embraces  a 
lovely  park  and  w^ood,  and  from  which,  in- 
cidentally, the  Germans  cut  i,ooo  trees. 
281 


232  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

It  is  no  longer  only  the  estate  of  the  du 
Pares,  it  is  the  loved  shelter  of  every 
villager  accustomed  to  hurry  toward  it 
in  sad  or  perilous  hours.  The  morale  of 
the  entire  region  was  sustained  by  the 
knowledge  that  the  people  of  the  chateau 
had  not  left,  as  they  easily  might  have, 
for  their  safer  Brussels  home,  in  the  zone 
of  civil  administration,  where  if  not  free, 
they  would  at  least  have  been  less  im- 
prisoned, but  had  chosen  to  remain  in 
the  military  zone,  utterly  cut  ofif  from 
their  relatives  and  the  rest  of  Belgium. 

They  might  have  considered  sev- 
eral reasons  sufficiently  important  to 
call  them  away  (the  Bourgmestre  of 
Herzele  had  found  at  least  one,  his  ill- 
health)  ;  among  other  things  their 
chateau  was  as  yet  practically  uninhabit- 
able. It  had  been  begun  only  a  short 
time  before  the  war  broke  out,  and  with 
the  sounding  of  the  first  alarm  the  work- 
men had  rushed  out  to  report  to  their 


HERZELE  283 

officers,  leaving  electric  cords  dangling, 
unmounted  fixtures  standing  against  the 
walls,  and  neither  hot  water  nor  heating 
systems  installed.  Madame  told  me  later 
of  her  desperate  and  amusing  efforts  to 
fasten  locks  on  the  most  important  doors. 
As  she  and  her  husband  were  debating 
how  they  might  arrange  one  large  room 
in  the  left  wing  as  their  single  general 
living-room  they  could  already  see  the 
villagers  coming  anxiously  along  the 
tree-lined  avenue  and  across  the  park  to 
inquire  if  they  were  still  there.  "After 
the  first  troubled  questions,"  Monsieur 
said,  "even  if  we  had  not  already  decided 
we  must  stay,  it  would  have  been  quite 
impossible  to  go  away." 

The  soldiers  of  the  village  were  leaving 
with  scarcely  time  for  good-bys;  Madame 
understood  the  fears  of  the  women  who 
came  to  the  chateau  for  comfort;  her 
only  son,  too,  a  brave,  handsome  boy,  was 
off  to  join  the  colors — her  brave,  hand- 


2S4!  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

some  boy,  who  now  lies  buried  not  far 
from  the  Yser, 

In  October  the  victorious  Germans 
pushed  southward,  and  from  the  14th  to 
the  1 8th,  shrapnel  fell  like  rain  on  the 
park,  but  the  chateau  escaped  unharmed. 
Then  three  officers  of  the  occupying  army 
rode  up  on  horseback,  revolvers  in  hand, 
demanding  that  the  Comte  present  him- 
self immediately.  Madame  followed  her 
husband,  not  knowing  what  to  expect. 
To  their  first  threat.  Monsieur  replied 
calmly,  "I  do  not  like  those  objects,"  and 
after  a  moment's  hesitation  the  officers 
lowered  their  weapons.  Then  they  de- 
manded guaranties  that  they  would  be 
absolutely  safe  from  attack  by  any  per- 
son, either  of  the  chateau  or  the  village. 
'T  can,  of  course,  speak  for  my  chateau," 
Monsieur  answered,  "but  I  can  not  be  re- 
sponsible for  the  villagers  if  they  are 
pushed  too  far."  These  villagers  them- 
selves told  me  later  that  thev  were  con- 


HERZELE  235 

vinced  it  was  only  the  presence  of  the 
Comte  (the  bulHes  were  frequently  servile 
before  titles  and  powerless  before  fear- 
lessness) that  saved  Herzele  from  de- 
struction. "We  always  expected  the 
worst,"  they  said;  "in  the  early  days, 
when  the  Boches  lighted  a  great  fire  in 
the  wood,  we  rushed  to  the  chateau,  be- 
lieving it  was  burning." 

From  the  beginning,  Madame  and  her 
two  daughters  looked  for  some  con- 
structive aid  they  might  give  their 
women,  something  more  than  the  general 
relief  furnished  by  the  Comite  National. 

Of  the  2,500  inhabitants  of  the  village, 
1,700  were  soon  on  the  lists  of  the  help- 
less or  destitute :  among  these  were  many 
tuberculosis  victims.  The  chateau  living- 
room  became  first  a  clothing  bureau, 
where  daily  all  sorts  of  garments,  sent 
from  America,  were  distributed.  Madame 
engaged  some  of  the  women  of  the  village 
to  patch  and  re-fashion  these,  and  with 


836  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

certain  sums  of  money  that  succeeded  in 
reaching  her  from  time  to  time  from  an 
American  lady  who  had  "adopted" 
Herzele,  she  was  able  to  purchase  new 
materials  and  offer  further  saving  em- 
ployment. I  do  not  know  the  American 
lady,  but  if  she  could  have  seen  Madame's 
eyes  as  she  told  me  of  what  it  meant,  im- 
prisoned as  they  were,  to  receive  these 
gifts  from  some  one  outside  who  remem- 
bered them,  I  do  not  doubt  she  would 
have  felt  sufficiently  rewarded. 

In  191 6,  when  I  was  in  Belgium  as  a 
member  of  the  Commission  for  Relief  in 
Belgium,  the  Germans  prevented  my 
going  near  Herzele,  or  any  point  in  the 
zone  of  direct  military  preparation,  so  I 
could  follow  the  work  of  Monsieur  and 
Madame  only  through  the  Brussels  Lace 
Committee,  which  had  itself  great  diffi- 
culty in  keeping  connected  with  them. 
They  made  their  judgments  from  the 
ever  increasing  quantities  and  improved 


HERZELE  237 

quality  of  the  laces  that  somehow  came 
through. 

The  room  in  the  chateau  was  the  lace 
office  not  only  for  Herzele,  but  for  eleven 
additional  villages,  where  between  2,500 
and  3,000  girls  and  women,  encouraged 
by  the  Committee  support — its  designs 
and  thread  and  money — were  busy  with 
their  needles  and  bobbins;  for  while  this 
is  chiefly  a  needle-work  district,  large 
quantities  of  bobbin  laces  are  also  made. 
To  be  sure,  none  of  these  laces  is  superior, 
but  they  are  good,  and  marketable.  They 
include  Cluny,  Duchesse  de  Bruxelles,  a 
kind  of  coarse  Flanders  (where  the 
flowers  are  made  with  bobbins  and  the 
mesh  with  the  needle),  Venise,  and  Rosa- 
line ;  and  of  these  the  Flanders  and  Venise 
are  most  important.  At  times  it  was  not 
difficult  for  the  dentellieres  to  take  or 
send  their  finished  lace  to  the  chateau,  at 
others  they  were  threatened  with  fines 
and  imprisonment  if  they  were  discovered 


238  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

trying  to  get  it  there.  To  refer  to  but 
one  instance,  the  facteur  of  the  village 
three  miles  distant  was  fined  seventy-five 
francs  when  caught  on  the  way  with  his 
pieces.  The  Germans  were  doing  their 
utmost  always,  to  attach  lace-makers  to 
their  Spitzen  Centrale,  and  despite  the  in- 
ternational agreement  which  engaged 
their  protection  of  the  work  of  the 
Brussels  Lace  Committee,  they  interfered 
with  and  obstructed  its  work  again  and 
again.  At  one  point  they  insisted  that 
all  deliveries  to  the  Committee  should  be 
made  through  them,  and  that  they  be 
paid  I  per  cent,  on  the  value,  in  gold,  for 
transmission,  where  transmission,  un- 
fortunately, only  too  often  spelled  for 
them  retention. 

In  the  village  Madame  and  her  daugh- 
ters went  from  house  to  house,  instruct- 
ing and  comforting.  The  days  of  the  de- 
portations were  more  terrible  than  any 
others.  In  remembering  that  first  hideous 
deportation  night  in  Herzele,  one  remem- 


HERZELE  239 

bers,  too,  that  early  in  the  war  Cardinal 
Mercier  said  that  while  there  was  once  a 
time,  when  to  make  people  believe,  we 
felt  we  must  heighten,  or  embellish  the 
cold  facts,  that  now  in  order  that  they 
should  believe,  we  must  withhold  part  of 
the  truth.  That  first  night,  men  and 
boys  were  torn  from  their  beds  and 
herded  into  the  school,  from  there  to  be 
carried  off  in  cattle-cars  to  Germany. 
There  was  neither  light  nor  heat,  and  in 
the  cold  and  the  darkness,  the  tortured 
little  village  broke  into  a  great  cry  of 
lamentation,  while  the  chateau  was  filled 
with  wives  and  mothers  seeking  comfort. 
Later,  when  the  activist  troubles  be- 
came acute,  the  two  daughters  held  meet- 
ings even  in  the  cabarets  to  urge  loyalty 
to  a  united  Belgium.  They  believe  that 
not  one  person  in  their  entire  village  can 
be  said  to  have  worked  for  the  enemy, 
except  when  deported  bodily,  or  other- 
wise coerced. 


^40  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

Somehow  the  years  passed,  and  then 
one  day,  the  i6th  of  September,  191 7, 
bits  of  white  paper  fell  like  snow  from 
the  clouds.  The  family  rushed  out  to 
gather  them  and  found  Lord  Northcliffe's 
celebrated  posters,  'The  First  Million," 
representing  a  vast  multitude  on  the 
march,  the  statue  of  liberty  in  the  back- 
ground, the  fields  of  France  in  the  fore- 
ground, and  a  continuous  bridge  of  ships 
connecting  them.  This  snowfall  was  fol- 
lowed by  others,  and  each  brought  hope. 

Finally,  in  October,  19 18,  the  Germans, 
knowing  the  Allied  Army  of  Liberation 
was  almost  upon  them,  again  pulled  their 
guns  up  into  the  chateau  grounds,  but  in 
the  final  fighting,  as  in  the  earliest,  the 
house  somehow  escaped. 

When  I  reached  Herzele,  in  January, 
1 9 19,  the  wide  park  was  beautiful  and 
still,  green  things  were  sprouting  beneath 
the  trees,  there  were  a  few  birds;  to  a 
stranger  there  was  little  evidence  of  the 


WEitiMxc;  (;;ft  of   mk.   iioonhk   id   .mk>.  i'acI', 

Executed   in   Venise  and    I'^landers  lace  by  30  women    working   three 

montlis.   American  eagles  with  outspread  wings,  protecting  the  P.elgian 

Lion    enchained    in    the    four    corners 


I'l.AMlKKS  —  NKKni.K    MKSH,    HOHHIN     KI.OWKR;- 


VENISE  LACE  CENTER,  BORDER  OF  VALENCIENNES 

Lace  executed  in  Flanders  by  40  women  in  two  months;  embroider_v 
and  mounting  in  Brussels  by  foUr  women  in  three  months 


VAl.lCNClliNMiS,     SgUAKIi     MliSH 


HERZELE  241 

terrible  years.  But  inside,  in  the  cold,  un- 
finished hall,  the  electric  cords  still  dan- 
gled ;  everything  was  as  the  Belgian  work- 
men had  left  it  four  and  a  half  years  be- 
fore. And  in  the  single  living-room  at  the 
left,  rudely  furnished,  but  including 
through  large  windows  the  beauty  of  the 
park,  there  were  still  the  war-time  desk 
and  long  table  with  the  piles  of  trousers 
and  shirts  at  one  end,  and  the  rolls  of  white 
lace  at  the  other.  I  shook  out  a  scarf  of 
Duchesse  de  Bruxelles  of  flower  and  leaf 
pattern,  with  insets  in  needle  work,  and 
several  wide  flounces  of  Flanders  lace,  of 
the  same  pattern  I  had  seen  used  in  the 
charming  lamp-shades  on  sale  in  the 
Committee  room  at  Brussels.  There  were 
also  rolls  of  Bruges,  and  Rosaline,  Ap- 
plication, and  Point  d'Angleterre. 

As  I  examined  them.  Monsieur  got  out 
his  records  and  discust  the  future  of  his 
lace-workers.  '1  am  convinced  they  will 
be  happy  to  continue  in  this  district,  if 


242  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

only  they  can  be  sure  of  a  living  wage. 
And  apart  from  other  determining 
factors,  to  make  that,  they  must  learn  to 
execute  laces  of  better  quality.  We  need, 
above  all,  a  school  which  will  ofifer  along 
with  its  courses  in  practical  lace-making, 
training  in  design.  During  the  war  we 
had  many  beautiful  designs  from  the 
Committee,  but  each  time  we  were  cut 
off  from  them  we  realized  our  helpless- 
ness. In  one  of  the  villages  the  patterns 
are  drawn  by  a  furniture-maker.  One 
reason  for  the  wretched  condition  of  the 
workers  before  the  war  was  their  entire 
dependence  on  the  particular  lace  dealer 
who  furnished  them  their  patterns  and 
their  thread,  and  who,  of  course,  pro- 
tected his  models  by  copyright.  The  old, 
unprotected  designs,  which  may  be  copied 
by  any  one,  are  little  in  demand,  and 
during  the  process  of  generations  of  re- 
copying,  many  of  them  have  so  greatly 
deteriorated  as  to  become  scarcely  recog- 


HERZELE  243 

nizable.  If  our  women  were  trained  they 
could  restore  these,  and,  what  is  more 
important,  some  of  them,  at  least,  could 
invent  new  ones." 

I  asked  what  it  would  cost  to  found  a 
school  and  support  it  during  its  first  year. 
"Perhaps  20,000  or  25,000  francs;  we 
might  hope  that  the  State  would  under- 
take such  a  work,  but  with  its  present 
overwhelming  burden,  it  is  a  question  if 
the  Government  can  occupy  itself  with 
lace  needs.  If  it  could  be  started  by 
private  initiative,  and  prove  successful,  I 
believe  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Gov- 
ernment would  be  willing  later  to  sub- 
sidize it." 

Madame  brought  a  picture  post-card 
from  the  mantel,  of  three  brothers  who 
had  been  deported,  two  of  whom  had  not 
returned.  Other  men  were  drifting  back 
from  Metz,  where  most  of  the  deportes 
from  Herzele  had  been  for  over  two  and 
a  half  years,  but  these  two  would  not  re- 


^44  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

turn,  for  they  had  been  frozen  to  death. 
I  understood  at  once,  for  I  remembered 
the  sixty-five  men  with  black  arms  and 
legs  who  had  been  '"returned"  to  the 
Brussels  Hospital  in  1917.  "No"; 
Madame  looked  at  the  portrait  of  her 
boy,  with  the  Belgian  colors  above  it  and 
a  vase  of  flowers  in  front,  and  then  again 
at  the  little  post-card;  "No,"  she  said 
simply,  "I  have  no  desire  yet  to  go  to 
Brussels.  I  prefer  to  remain  here  with 
my  people,  where  we  may  still,  from  time 
to  time,  weep  together." 


XI 

GHENT 


248 


XI 

GHENT 

A  Lace  Queen  of  Long  Ago 

OF  the  cities  I  visited  during  three 
months'  continuous  travel  in  Bel- 
gium following  the  armistice,  Ghent 
appeared  to  me  to  be  attacking  her 
problems  with  greatest  speed  and  vigor. 
Brave  old  Burgher  city  of  canals  and 
mellow  buildings  and  bell-towers,  this 
^Flemish  capital  is  at  the  same  time 
an  active,  modern,  commercial  center; 
which  explains  why  Bruges  has  been  able 
to  win  from  her  the  title  she  once  proudly 
held  of  "Queen  of  Lace  Cities." 

The  lace  history  of  Ghent  begins  with 
the  lace  history  of  Belgium,  in  the  six- 
teenth century ;  but  her  great  period  dates 
247 


248  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

from  the  seventeenth  century  and  the  in- 
troduction of  the  epoch-making  mesh  of 
Valenciennes.  The  activity  of  her  women 
and  girls,  following  the  appearance  of 
this  new  lace,  surpassed  anything  she  had 
hitherto  known;  it  was  not  long  before 
the  music  of  1,000,000  bobbins  rose  to 
meet  the  riotous  pealing  of  her  bells.  In 
the  sixteenth  century  Malines  had  undis- 
puted first  place  in  lace;  Ghent  now  out- 
stript  her.  One  wonders  if  part  of  the 
fascination  of  this  city  for  the  men  the 
United  States  sent  there  in  1814,  to  make 
peace  with  England,  and  who,  after  six 
months'  lingering,  had  to  be  urged  to 
return  home,  lay  in  its  clicking  bobbins 
and  the  joyous  garlands  that  blossomed 
under  them. 

There  is  a  portrait  in  the  Hotel  de 
Ville,  where  one  may  see  the  Empress 
Marie-Therese,  wearing  the  marvelous 
Valenciennes  and  the  Needle  Point  robe 
presented  to  her  by  the  Canton  de  Gand 


GHENT  249 

in  1743.  And  scarcely  more  than  a  cen- 
tury later,  in  1853,  the  city  made  its  last 
gift  of  similar  magnificence — another 
robe,  valued  at  20,000  francs,  on  which 
80,000  bobbins  were  employed  unceas- 
ingly during  six  months,  and  this  time 
offered  to  the  Duchess  of  Brabant, 
Marie-Henriette,  There  were  no  succeed- 
ing world-stirring  gifts  of  lace  because 
Ghent  had  begun  to  think  of  other  things, 
of  industrial  and  commercial  develop- 
ment, and  as  she  advanced  in  these,  the 
art  of  lace-making  declined,  until  to-day 
it  has  ceased  to  exist. 

However,  in  the  surrounding  com- 
munes (the  region  counts  fifty)  there  are 
still  perhaps  2,000  dentellieres  making 
most  of  the  bobbin  and  needle  varieties, 
the  best  among  them  being  Valenciennes, 
Flanders,  Duchesse,  Needle  Point,  Bruges 
and  Rosaline.  The  Comtesse  de  Bousies, 
chairman  of  the  Ghent  Lace  Committee 
during    the    war,    did   her    best    to    en- 


250  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

courage  the  work  in  these  outlying  dis- 
tricts, and  was  able  to  help,  in  addition, 
many  needy  women  in  the  city  itself. 

In  191 7,  for  instance,  Celine  appeared 
at  the  office  to  ask  for  thread.  She  was 
twenty  years  old,  and  before  the  war  had 
been  one  of  the  10,000  women  employed 
in  the  linen  spinning  mills  ;■  her  mother 
was  ill  with  tuberculosis,  her  father  with- 
out work,  and  also  ill;  there  were  five 
younger  children.  "I  know  I  have  not 
proper  fingers,"  she  said,  as  she  held  out 
her  rough  hands,  "but  if  you  will  only 
promise  I  may  bring  my  lace,  I  believe  I 
can  learn."  The  Committee  believed  this, 
too,  and  because  she  worked  with  intelli- 
gence and  with  almost  feverish  eagerness, 
she  was  soon  assured  the  minimum  wage 
of  three  francs  a  week,  and  later  the 
larger  sums  made  possible  with  the  Com- 
mittee's success.  Shortly  before  the 
armistice,  the  mother  died,  and  only  last 
week  Celine  came  again  to  the  desk  to 


GHENT  251 

ask  anxiously  if  the  Committee  could  not 
somehow  arrange,  that  even  after  they 
had  disbanded,  she  might  continue  to 
make  lace.  Her  father  had  found  a 
little  work ;  she  wanted  to  remain  at  home 
where  she  might  at  least  direct  the 
younger  children,  and  she  could,  if  only 
she  were  sure  of  her  war-time  wage. 
Could  not  the  Committee  promise  the  sale 
of  her  laces?  Often  repeated  question 
during  these  courage-testing  days,  when 
emergency  organizations  are  breaking 
up,  and  poor  women  do  not  yet  see  what 
is  to  replace  them. 

Among  the  more  important  communes 
on  the  Ghent  committee  list,  I  found 
Oosterzele,  Baelegem,  and  Landsanter, 
all  three  producing  a  good  quality  of 
Duchesse,  Flanders,  Needle  Point  and 
Venise,  and  counting  together  about  i6o 
lace-makers;  Gysenzeele  and  Destel- 
bergen,  which  make  fine  Flanders,  and 
Duchesse,    Knesselars,    with    250    Cluny 


252  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

workers;  Asper  with  60  in  Venise;  the 
convents  of  Scheldewinkle  and  Eecke,  the 
first  occupied  with  Venise,  the  second 
with  Needle  Point  and  Duchesse,  which 
it  sells  to  an  American  house,  and  finally, 
the  larger  Deynze  district,  including 
Vynck,  Lootenhulle,  Machelin,  the  Valen- 
ciennes convent  school  at  Ruysselede,  and 
Bachte,  with  perhaps  4CX)  lace-makers  in 
all. 

I  got  my  orientation  for  this  last  south- 
ern district  from  the  Comtesse  d' Alcan- 
tara, who  has  been  indefatigable  in  her 
double  role  of  chairman  of  Deynze  and 
vice-chairman  of  the  regional  committee. 
Constantly  throughout  the  war,  she 
might  have  been  seen  starting  from  the 
handsome  chateau  at  Bachte — one  of  the 
most  imposing  in  Belgium — on  bicycle 
or  on  foot  on  her  way  to  one  of  the  lace 
villages,  with  thread  and  money  for  the 
workers,  or  at  night  returning  with  the 
rolls  of  lace  which  she  had  then  to  get  to 


GHENT  263 

Ghent  and  from  there  to  Brussels.  The 
Germans  never  succeeded  in  obstructing 
her  work,  nor  that  of  her  father  and 
mother,  for  their  villagers  and  for  the 
orphans  of  the  entire  region.  Women 
came  between  shells  to  bring  laces.  It 
was  a  moral  help  just  to  be  able  to  talk 
about  their  work. 

As  I  crossed  the  moat  and  passed  un- 
der the  archway,  I  saw  the  spot  where 
the  last  Allied  shell  exploded,  killing  nine- 
teen Germans,  while  the  family  and  the 
200  villagers  in  the  cellars,  where  they 
had  been  for  two  weeks,  escaped  un- 
harmed. In  fact,  in  all  the  Deynze 
country  I  was  in  the  midst  of  the  destruc- 
tion accompanying  the  final  push  of  the 
liberating  army,  and  was  vividly  re- 
minded of  what  would  have  happened  to 
the  rest  of  Belgium  had  the  armistice 
been  further  delayed. 

But  already  in  the  partially  wrecked 
Killages  many  of  the  women  had  gone 


254  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

back  to  their  cushions  —  their  reason- 
saving  cushions,  for  they  furnished  prac- 
tically the  only  employment  to  be  had, 
and  however  small  the  earnings,  they  at 
least  insured  a  few  francs  a  week,  and 
best  of  all  they  proved  that  something  of 
the  past  persisted. 

In  Vynck,  a  poor  little  town  of  1,700 
people,  I  found  40  Valenciennes-makers, 
and  heard  that  100  young  girls  were 
being  taught  at  home  by  their  mothers. 
I  talked  with  two  maiden  sisters — one  68, 
the  other  72 — whom  I  spied  hidden  be- 
hind a  window-screen  of  potted  plants, 
working,  with  450  bobbins  each,  on  a 
kind  of  Valenciennes  one  finds  only  on 
the  cushions  of  the  past  generation.  They 
could  not  repeat  often  enough  their  grati- 
tude to  the  Committee,  which  had  been 
paying  them  44  francs  ($8.80)  a  meter 
for  their  lace,  so  much  more  than  they 
had  received  before  the  war  from  the 
Courtrai  facteur  to  whom  they  had  sold. 


GHENT  265 

They  counted  on  making  about  five 
meters  during  the  winter  ($44  worth), 
and  they  work  from  dawn  sometimes  till 
nine  at  night. 

In  a  neighboring  house  was  a  grand- 
mother of  eighty-one  and  her  grand- 
daughter, and  on  the  grandmother's 
cushion  such  a  covering  and  re-covering 
of  bobbins  and  lace,  to  keep  them  spot- 
less. Over  all  she  had  spread  a  large 
towel,  beneath  it  a  worn  napkin,  then  a 
piece  of  pink  gingham,  and  below  that 
two  remnants  of  white  and  blue  cloth, 
and  it  seemed  appropriate  that  the  snowy 
treasure,  Valenciennes,  too,  should  be  re- 
vealed to  me  only  after  such  a  ceremony 
of  unveiling  as  this  bent  old  woman  of 
Vynck  performed. 

I  passed  quickly  through  Lootenhulle 
with  its  125  workers,  who  make,  among 
other  varieties,  good  Duchesse  and  Rosa- 
line; and  Hansbeek,  which  produces  a 
superior    Valenciennes;   and    Ruysselede, 


g56  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

with  its  excellent  school  for  Valenciennes ; 
to  cross  from  the  south  to  Destelbergen, 
which  lies  almost  directly  east  of  Ghent. 
All  the  plain  was  white  under  the  first 
deep  snow  of  winter,  but  to  enjoy  its 
loveliness  one  had  to  be  able  to  forget  the 
torn  roofs  and  fireless  hearths. 

At  Destelbergen  I  went  at  once  to  the 
atelier  of  Mme.  Coppens,  to  whom 
women  of  both  France  and  Belgium  send 
their  old  Applications  and  spider-web 
meshes,  for  restoration.  Before  the  war 
she  employed  seventy  expert  lace-makers 
in  her  school,  now  she  can  depend  on  no 
more  than  twenty — tho  there  are  some 
lOO  less  skilful  ones  in  the  village.  On 
this  particular  January  day  the  school 
was  empty.  As  Mme.  Coppens  received 
me,  she  said,  *'I  regret,  Madame,  but  I 
am  without  coal,  and  without  thread;  I 
have  been  forced  to  close  my  work-room ; 
however,"  she  hesitated  an  instant,  "if 
Madame  does  not  object  to  coming  into 


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GHENT  257 

the  kitchen,  she  may  yet  see  Stephanie, 
the  first  lace-maker  of  the  village,  at 
work." 

Remembering  the  glistening  shelves 
and  floors  of  other  Flemish  kitchens,  I 
did  not  mind;  happily  not,  for  in  the  end 
Stephanie  was  more  to  me  than  many 
villages.  She  was  bending  over  an  im- 
maculate cushion,  seventy-eight  and  un- 
married, and  all  her  person  as  scrupu- 
lously neat  as  her  cushion,  from  her  odd 
little  peaked  black  crochet  cap  to  the  felt 
shoes  she  had  made  herself.  She  was 
weaving  the  flat  surfaces  of  a  dainty 
French  bouquet,  and  as  I  stept  toward 
her  chair,  looked  up,  delighted  that  some 
one  was  interested  in  what  she  was  mak- 
ing. When  I  picked  up  a  Bruges  collar 
on  the  nearby  table  she  tried  in  ejacu- 
latory  Flemish  to  make  me  understand, 
that  even  tho  she  had  made  parts  of  it, 
she  disowned  the  whole  as  unworthy  the 
name  of  lace,  and  she  brought  my  eyes 


258  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

back  to  the  delicate  texture  of  the  leaves 
and  petals  on  her  cushion. 

I  wished  to  know  what  Stephanie  was 
getting  for  a  day's  work  on  her  fine 
bouquets.  She  has  been  making  lace  for 
seventy  years,  is  intelligent  and  quick, 
and  her  maximum  wage  is  two  cents  an 
hour,  a  franc  for  a  day  of  ten  hours.  I 
asked  about  the  future — she  has  thought 
of  that,  not  without  anxiety,  and  is  pro- 
viding at  seventy-eight  for  what  she  calls 
"old  age"  by  trying  hard  to  put  by  two 
cents  a  week.  Madame  C.  has  been  kind 
to  her,  and  gives  her  as  much  freedom 
and  comfort  as  she  can  offer;  for  in- 
stance, when  Stephanie  was  ill  for  three 
days  last  week,  she  did  not  deduct  her 
wages.  She  would  gladly  double  her  pay, 
or  triple  it,  for  she  realizes  there  are  few 
like  Stephanie  left,  but  the  Paris  firm  to 
whom  she  sells  pays  so  little  for  her  lace 
that  she  has  never  been  able  to  offer  more 
than  a  franc  a  day.    "If  I  could  give  two 


GHENT  259 

francs,  I  could  quickly  gather  a  company 
of  i,ooo  contented  lace-makers,  I  am  cer- 
tain," she  said.  "But  when  my  old 
workers  fall  ill  or  die,  I  find  no  young 
girls  willing  to  come  to  me;  they  prefer 
the  twenty  francs  a  week  they  can  make 
picking  wool.  When  Stephanie  goes,  I 
shall  have  no  single  artist  to  replace  her. 
"Cest  tin  vrai  coeur  de  dentelle"  (she 
is  a  true  heart  of  lace),  she  said  affec- 
tionately, as  she  patted  her  on  the 
shoulder. 

And  then  she  went  to  fetch  a  cardboard 
box  and  I  took  a  chair  by  the  table,  to 
watch  her  unfold  what  it  might  contain. 
She  spread  three  beautiful  widths  of  Ap- 
plication on  blue  paper  so  that  I  might 
better  see  the  tiny  bouquets  and  scattered 
buds  and  leaves  that  blossomed  from  the 
fine  quality  of  machine-made  tulle;  all 
these  had  come  from  Stephanie's  bobbins, 
and  she  was  having  difficulty  to  continue 
at  her  cushion  because  of  her  eagerness 


260  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

to  explain  them.  They  were  FrencK  de- 
signs, as  their  charming  lines  had  made 
me  suspect.  In  the  box  with  the  Appli- 
cation were  two  rolls  of  Point  d'Anglc- 
terre,  the  lace  one  finds  rarely  at  present. 
We  held  the  first  one,  a  length  of  four 
meters,  six  inches  wide,  against  the  light, 
and  then  Stephanie  could  sit  still  no 
longer;  she  knew  something  about  this 
piece,  for  she  had  made  its  first  flower  in 
191 1,  and  not  finished  its  last  until  the 
war  was  half  over.  She  pointed  out  the 
spaces  where  a  special  needle-worker 
had  introduced  almost  microscopic  open 
stitches  into  her  leaves  and  blooms  to 
give  them  even  greater  airiness,  and 
showed  how  almost  impossible  it  would 
have  been  to  execute  these  needle-stitches 
with  bobbins;  and  how  difficult  is  the 
stitch  made  with  a  special  crochet-hook 
required  for  the  raised  veins  and  outlines 
(brodes)  of  the  petals  and  leaves,  since 
the  hook  must  catch  and  attach  the  thread 


GHENT  261 

each  time  beneath  the  surface.  Finally, 
a  needle-worker,  again,  as  is  always  the 
case  in  Point  d'Angletcrre,  had  spun  the 
clear  web  between  the  flowers,  uniting 
them  all  into  the  finished  flounce. 
Stephanie  pointed  to  a  single  detail.  "It 
took  me  five  days  to  make  that  tiny 
bouquet,  and  the  needle-worker  one  and 
a  half  days  more  to  add  the  open 
stitches." 

Since  the  snow-covered  roads  made 
traveling  extremely  hazardous,  I  decided 
that  I  could  not  stop  longer,  no  matter 
how  absorbing  the  Applications  and 
Points  d'Angletcrre,  or  how  endearing 
the  personality  and  contagious  the  en- 
thusiasm of  Stephanie.  I  said  "Good- 
by,"  explaining  that  I  had  yet  that  day 
to  visit  the  needle-lace  school  at  Zele, 
twenty  kilometers  away. 


XII 
ZELE 


263 


XII 

ZELE 

Stephanie  Visits  the  Trade  Union  Lace 
School 

BUT  I  was  not  to  have  to  part  with 
Stephanie.  When  her  Flemish 
ears  gathered  from  my  French  that 
I  was  starting  for  Zele  and  the  school 
founded  three  years  ago,  which  had 
been  the  talk  of  the  region  ever 
since,  her  eyes  fairly  spoke  her  eager 
desire.  Seventy-eight  and  earning  twenty 
cents  a  day,  and  yet  consumed  by  a  love 
for  her  art  (for  with  her,  lace-making  is 
a  true  art),  and  a  passion  to  learn  more 
about  it!  I  asked  Mme.  Coppens  if 
Stephanie  might  not  come  along  in  the 
car.  In  answer  she  began  bustling 
265 


I 


266  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

about,  tears  in  her  eyes,  to  help  get  her 
ready,  and  Stephanie  in  her  odd  Uttle 
woolen  cap  could  scarcely  tie  her  long 
black-hooded  cape  because  she  was  con- 
stantly throwing  up  her  hands,  and  ex- 
claiming, and  pressing  them  together,  as 
she  tried  to  make  me  understand  that  in 
all  her  seventy-eight  years  she  had  only 
twice  ridden  in  a  wagon  and  never  had 
she  dreamed  of  being  in  an  automobile 
before  she  died.  What  would  the  neigh- 
bors say?  We  bundled  her  into  the 
corner  of  the  car  and  were  off,  but  she 
could  not  sit  still,  leaning  forward  to  ex- 
claim over  the  beauty  of  the  snow,  or  a 
windmill,  or  the  children  skating  in  their 
sabots,  or  huddling  down  to  cover  her 
face  with  her  hands  in  swift  shyness  if 
some  one  had  seemed  to  see  her ;  no  spirit 
was  ever  so  bubbling  and  gay  and  eager 
and  timid  all  at  once  as  Stephanie's  as 
we  rode  through  the  snow  toward  Zele. 
Nor  so  patient  as  hers  after   we  ar- 


ZELE  «67 

rived;  for  instead  of  going  to  the  school, 
I  had  to  leave  her  in  the  car  while  I  went 
to  the  house  of  the  director,  Dr.  Armand 
Rubbens,  unfortunately  ill  with  rheu- 
matism, who  is  not  only  the  founder  of 
the  school  but  the  inspiration  of  all  the 
unusual  accomplishments  of  the  lace- 
workers  of  this  town,  where  his  father  is 
Burgomaster.  After  her  long  wait, 
Stephanie's  only  comment  as  she  looked 
a  little  fearfully  at  the  gathering  dusk, 
was:  "It  is  not  yet  too  late  to  see  the 
school." 

Inside,  Dr.  Rubbens,  Vv^ho  since  taking 
his  university  degree  has  not  been  strong 
enough  to  follow  his  profession,  and  has 
devoted  himself  to  the  800  lace-workers  of 
his  district,  explained  the  organization  of 
the  Zele  'Trade  Union  Lace  School," 
founded  three  years  ago  and  the  only  one 
of  its  kind  in  Belgium.  I  felt,  as  he  talked, 
that  he  was  reproducing  in  miniature  a 
Henry  Ford  plant,  and  when  I  told  him 


BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

this,  he  smiled.  "I  begin  to  think  I  should 
see  one  of  Mr.  Ford's  factories,  for  in 
reading  an  account  of  his  system  in  the 
Paris  Matin  last  week,  I  was  astonished 
at  the  number  of  his  ideas  I  had  incor- 
porated." 

The  fifty  advanced  workers  in  the 
atelier  (there  are  140  apprentices)  share 
the  profit  of  the  lace  sales  in  proportion 
to  their  wages,  and  own  part  of  the  stock 
of  the  union.  The  best  workers  of  this 
group  make  twenty-five  centimes  an  hour, 
or  two  and  a  half  francs  (fifty  cents)  a 
day  of  eight  hours,  the  highest  pay  I 
know  of,  so  far,  gained  by  a  lace-maker. 
The  girls  may  go  four  hours  each  week 
to  a  school  of  domestic  science,  without 
losing  pay;  there  are  illness  and  pension 
funds,  and  other  provisions  for  the  health 
and  protection  of  the  members  of  the 
school.  Dr.  Rubbens  has  seemed  to  ac- 
cept every  opportunity  as  a  privilege. 

I  looked  over  the  files  and  photographs 


\T    WOKK    ii\    HKTAILS   OF    A    XF;EDL?:-Pni  XT    SCARF    TO    BK    PKESKXTKD    Td 
OUEEX     ELIZABETH 


NEEDLE    LACE    CLASS-ROOM      l\     TFIK     IKMiL     UX'IOX     LAc'E     SCllLK)!-     AT     /LLE 


. .  °=  « 


K   H  w 


W  £  w 

O  I     13 

U  id 

~i  M 

N  "^ 

M  ^' 

K  = 

2:  fe 


ZELE  369 

and  records,  for  even  tho  Zele  is  a  remote 
town  of  but  6,000  inhabitants,  this  wide- 
awake director  has  made  it  provide  for 
him  a  better  set  of  records  and  announce- 
ment and  advertising  cards  (some  of 
them  in  English)  than  I  have  seen  any- 
where else  in  Belgium.  While  I  was  in- 
specting the  books,  he  opened  a  chest  and 
spread  on  the  table  a  finished  model  from 
his  school — a  Needle  Point  scarf  or  veil, 
sown  with  marguerites  and  varied  by  a 
bewildering  succession  of  open-work 
stitches,  each  seemingly  more  exquisite 
than  the  preceding  and  some  of  them 
invented  for  this  particular  veil.  The 
needle-workers  who  had  made  it  had 
given  about  9,000  hours  to  its  flowers 
and  gauze,  and  it  would  bring  3,000 
francs  to  the  Trade  Union  treasury. 

I  felt  that  I  must  fetch  Stephanie  to 
see  this,  but  Dr.  Rubbens  advised  hurry- 
ing now  to  the  school,  where  there  was 
something  still  more  beautiful  to  be  seen 


270  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

— the  scarf  just  completed  that  will  be 
presented  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  so  far 
the  chef-d'oeuvre  of  the  Zele  lace-makers. 
I  told  Stephanie  about  it  on  our  way 
through  the  village. 

Once  arrived,  we  went  directly  to  the 
most  advanced  class,  where  Stephanie 
might  find  most  to  interest  her.  The 
young  women  were  at  work  on  Needle 
Point  collars  and  medallions,  a  series  of 
tableaux  from  the  legend  of  the  Fox  and 
the  Grapes,  and  she  was  all  eyes  and 
ears  as  she  went  eagerly  from  chair  to 
chair,  trying  to  see  what  these  girls  had 
been  taught  that  she  had  missed  learning, 
and  to  add  to  her  lore,  if  she  could.  I 
believe  it  is  only  in  such  a  modern  school 
as  this  that  an  outsider  would  have  been 
allowed  to  examine,  as  Stephanie  did,  the 
stitches  and  patterns,  for  the  tradition 
of  the  locked  door  and  the  carefully 
guarded  secret  still  prevails  in  the  lace 
word. 


ZELE  271 

T  was  impatient  to  see  the  school's  mas- 
terpiece, the  royal  scarf,  and  it  was  now 
brought  from  the  safe  and  held  before 
us  by  three  young  women,  as  the  di- 
rectress led  us  from  point  to  point  in  the 
airy  mesh  spun  between  its  rose  garlands 
and  medallions.  On  either  side  of  the 
center  medallion,  the  arms  of  Belgium, 
were  two  others,  in  which  human  figures 
symbolized  cities  the  war  has  made  im- 
mortal. For  Nieuport  a  fisher-maiden 
stood  on  the  shore  with  her  basket,  and 
about  her  the  net  took  up  a  cockle- 
shell motif;  Poperinghe  had  the  graceful 
hop-vine  as  its  device;  for  Furnes  there 
was  a  dairy-maid  with  her  churn  in  the 
midst  of  blossoming  butter  flowers ;  while 
Ypres  was  represented  by  a  beautiful 
Flamande  sitting  before  a  lace  cushion 
heaped  with  bobbins — countless  stitches, 
occupying  12,000  hours,  and  the  entire 
weight  125  grammes!  And  yet,  at  the 
end,  Stephanie  tilted  her  dear  old  head 


272  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

and  said :  ''Nevertheless,  Madame,  for  the 
Queen,  I  should  have  made  the  mesh  yet 
finer." 

This  Trade  Union  is  in  a  sense  a  pro- 
fessional school,  since  it  teaches  design, 
but  there  is  the  v^eak  spot  in  an  otherwise 
remarkable  achievement.  The  designs 
executed  by  Dr.  Rubbens  and  the  school 
are  often  the  kind  that  have  led  foreign 
lace-buyers  to  order  through  Paris,  which 
could  furnish  the  drawings,  rather  than 
direct  from  Belgium.  They  lack  the 
lightness  and  grace  that  lace  designs 
should  unfailingly  possess,  just  the  quali- 
ties which  the  Friends  of  Lace  have  done 
so  much  to  encourage  and  cultivate.  If 
Dr.  Rubbens  can  see  his  way  to  follow 
their  suggestions,  or  to  employing  a 
French  teacher,  there  seems  no  limit  to 
what  he  may  accomplish. 

He  is  now  attempting  to  establish  a 
true  needle-lace  Normal  School,  which  will 
ofifer  courses  in  commerce,  English,  his- 


2ELE  S7S 

tory,  and  all  the  branches  necessary  to  a 
complete  lace  education.  This  will  sup- 
plement the  instruction  of  the  Bruges 
1)obbin-lace  Normal,  already  well  under 
way.  He  holds  that  the  teaching  of  the 
fine  needle  points  is  more  tedious  and 
difficult  than  the  teaching  of  the  bobbin" 
points,  and  that  it  takes  more  years  to 
become  expert  in  needle  laces  than  in 
others. 

On  the  way  home,  Stephanie  asked 
what  she  might  do  for  me.  "You  may 
pray  for  me,  if  you  wish,  Stephanie." 
She  was  silent  a  moment.  ''But,  Madame, 
should  I  not  make  a  pilgrimage  to 
Lourdes  for  you?  On  one  of  my  trips 
in  the  wagon,  I  saw  the  sea,  and  for 
three  years  after  that  the  sea  was  every 
day  just  before  my  eyes.  And  to-day 
will  remain  until  I  die  just  in  front  of  my 
eyes.  Aladame,  should  I  not  go  to 
Lourdes  for  you?" 


APPENDIX 


278 


S76 


BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 


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APPENDIX  2TT 


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»78  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 


a.  Pattern 


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b.  Worker's  piqure  made   from  pattern 


APPENDIX 

With  Drawings  by  the  Directrice  of  the  Brussels 
School  of  Design,  Mme.  Lucie  Paulis 

FROM  the  point  of  view  of  technique,  all 
laces  are  divided  into  two  groups;  laces 
made  with  the  needle,   and  laces  made 
with  bobbins. 

/. — Laces  Made  with  the  Needle 

All  needle  lace  is  executed  in  the  same  manner. 
First,  the  design  of  the  whole  is  divided  into  de- 
tails sufficiently  small  to  allow  of  their  being 
easily  held  and  turned  by  the  worker.  The  de- 
sign of  each  of  these  details  is  reproduced  on  a 
special  kind  of  black  paper  by  means  of  tiny 
pricked  holes  that  follow  all  its  lines. 

The  lace  worker  sews  this  pattern  (or  piqure) 
to  a  piece  of  double  white  cloth,  which  gives  it 
solidity.  She  is  then  ready  to  begin  the  trace 
or  outlining  process.  A  strand  of  two  or  three 
threads  is  appliqued  along  all  the  contours  of 
the  pattern  by  means  of  a  very  fine  needle  and 
very  fine  thread,  which  catches  the  cloth  below 
the  black  paper,  passing  and  repassing  through 
each  of  the  holes  of  the  pattern,  thus  holding  the 
279 


BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 


o 


APPENDIX  281 

outlining  strand  in  a  sort  of  embrace.  When  all 
the  contours  of  the  drawing  have  been  traced, 
the  second  part  of  the  work  begins,  the  execution 
of  the  points  that  are  to  fill  in  the  spaces. 

All  the  points  or  stitches  of  needle  lace  are 
loops,  simple  or  twisted,  formed  by  a  needle 
carrying  a  single  thread.  (The  worker  holds  the 
needle  with  the  base  instead  of  the  point,  for- 
ward.) The  first  row  of  loops  is  attached  to  the 
threads  of  the  outlining  strand.  Arriving  at  the 
extremity  of  the  space  she  is  working,  the  lace- 
maker  begins  a  second  row  of  loops  running  in 
the  opposite  direction,  attaching  each  loop  to  the 
corresponding  loop  of  the  first  row.  At  the  end 
of  this  row  she  fastens  it  to  the  outlining  strand 
by  one  or  two  stitches  and  starts  on  the  third 
row,  repeating  this  operation  until  her  space  is 
completely  covered. 

The  points  or  stitches  most  frequently  em- 
ployed are : 

I.  The  plat  (sketch  d),  or  stitch  which  forms 
the  flat  woven  parts,  which  can  be  more  or 
less  tightly  drawn,  and  serves  for  all  the 
opaque  parts  of  the  lace.  It  is  made  by 
simple  loops,  each  row  being  consolidated 
by  means  of  a  stretched  thread  as  illus- 
trated in  the  sketch. 


«82  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 


d.  Stitch  for  the  plat  or  surface 


e.  Stitch  one 


APPENDIX 


£88 


The  jours  or  open-work  stitches.     Among 
the  fantasy  stitches  employed  in  the  jours 


are: 


/.  Mirror  stitch 

a.  The  point  one,  or  stitch  one,  (sketch  e.) 

There  exists  also  a  stitch  tzvo,  and  stitch 
three,  which  differ  in  the  number  of  loops 
forming  the  group. 

b.  The  mirror  stitch  (sketch  f.)  and  a  kind  of 
ball  stitch  (sketch  g.),and  lastly  the  famous 
extremely  transparent  point  de  gaze,  or 
gauze  stitch  (sketch  h.),  which  constitutes 
the  mesh  of  the  popular  Brussels  lace. 


284  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

All  the  surfaces  having  been  covered,  the  lace 
is  further  embellished  by  the  confection  of 
brodes, or  firm  outlining  cords  around  the  fiUed-in 


g.  Ball  stitch 

spaces,  which  produce  a  more  or  less  striking 
effect  of  relief  in  needle  laces.  This  brode 
(sketch  i),  is  made  of  a  strand  of  fine  or  heavier 
threads,  appliqued  as  was  the  original  strand 
outlining  the  pattern  spaces,  and  then  beautifully 
covered  by  the  buttonhole   stitch.     When   the 


APPENDIX 


886 


brode  is  well  made,  the  buttonhole  stitches  fol- 
low closely,  touching  side  by  side. 

Many  differing  little  details  which  help  to  give 


//.  Gauze  mesh  stitch 
to  needle  lace  its  richness  and  brilliancy  (balls, 
rings,  etc.),  are  also  varieties  of  brodes,  and  are 
made  for  the  most  part  in  the  buttonhole  stitch. 
The  bars  forming  the  base  of  Venise  lace  are 
made  in  this  way. 
The  execution  of  the  brodes  is  the  final  work 


286  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

in  needle  lace.  After  they  are  finished,  the  lace 
detail  is  detached  from  the  underlying  pattern  by 
cutting  the  thread  between  the  black  paper  and 
supporting  cloth,  the  fine  thread  which  in  the 
beginning  attached  the  outlining  strand.  There 
remains  only  to  join  the  separate  details  of  the 
pattern  by  a  very  fine  stitch  called  the  point 
invisible. 


i.  Erode,  buttonhole  stitch 

The  varieties  of  needle  laces  are : 

a.  Venise  (fond  or  base  composed  of  brides 
or  bars). 

b.  Reticella  (Venise  lace  of  geometric  design 
and  made  without  brodes  or  outlining  re- 
lief cords). 

c.  Rose  Point  (Venise  with  a  design  of  fine 
branches  and  tendrils). 

d.  Brussels  Point  or  Needle  Point  (very  fine 
lace  in  which  a  gauze  mesh  replaces  the 
bars  employed  in  Venise). 


APPENDIX  287 

//. — Bobbin  Lace 

Bobbin  laces  fall  under  two  groups :  ( I )  Those 
made  with  cut  threads,  and  (2)  those  made  with 
continuous  threads. 

I.  Laces  made  with  cut  threads,  or  of  repeated 
details,  are  executed  on  a  round  cushion,  which 
can  be  easily  turned  and  they  require  but  a  lim- 
ited number  of  bobbins  (generally  not  more  than 
two  dozen).  They  may  be  said  to  be  composed 
essentially  of  a  braid  which  grows  wider  or  nar- 
rower as  it  follows  all  the  variations  of  the  pat- 
tern, and  is  interrupted  as  often  as  is  necessary. 

The  parts  in  process  of  operation  are  attached 
to  those  already  finished  by  veritable  running 
knots  made  with  the  aid  of  a  little  crochet  needle, 
a  tool  absolutely  indispensable  to  the  making  of 
this  kind  of  lace.  The  design  of  the  whole  is 
divided  into  portions  so  small  that  they  cover  only 
the  middle  of  the  cushion.  It  is  necessary  to  have 
all  around  the  detail,  space  for  the  bobbins,  each 
of  which  carries  a  thread  about  four  inches  long. 

Each  fragment  is  traced  on  a  dark  blue  paper 
or  patron  on  which  the  place  for  the  pins  is  not 
indicated  (sketch  k.).  The  lace-maker  pins  this 
blue  paper  to  the  middle  of  her  cushion,  covering 
the  whole  with  a  piece  of  dark  blue  linen  which 
has  a  hole  in  the  middle  large  enough  to  leave  free 
the  part  of  the  pattern  actually  being  worked.  The 


288 


BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 


!>'       •illllll 


j.  Bobbins   used   in    making   Belgian  laces 
/,  2  and  3  Valenciennes 
4  and  5  Malines 


APPENDIX 


y.   Bobbin?;  used  in  making   Belgian  laces 


6  Malines  8  Application 

7  Point   tie    P.'iris  9  Torchon 

10  Duchesse 


290 


BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 


lace  already  finished  is  thus  protected.  She  then 
places  a  pin  on  the  spot  where  she  decides  to 
begin,  attaching  the  necessary  number  qf  bob- 


k.  A  pattern   for  bobbin  lace,  with  1. 

m,  n,  the  braids  in  which  it  must 

be  executed 

bins  and  starts  to  weave  as  a  weaver  does,  first 
from  right  to  left,  then  from  left  to  right,  carry- 
ing the  two  bobbins  holding  the  threads  forming 
the  woof  (trame)  successively  above  and  below 
the  threads  forming  the  warp  (chaine).  Each 
time  all  of  the  threads  of  the  warp  have  been 


APPENDIX 


291 


29'^  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

crossed  by  the  threads  of  the  woof,  she  places 
a  pin,  and  now  the  two  woof  threads  caught  by 
this  pin  lead  back  to  the  opposite  side.  She  turns 
her  cushion  according  to  the  direction  of  the 
braid  she  is  executing,  so  that  the  threads  form- 
ing the  warp  always  fall  vertically. 

The  fundamental  stitch  in  these  laces  and  that 
which,  forms  the  greatest  part  of  the  braids  is 
the  point  de  toile,  or  toile  (sketch  1.).  Certain 
open  stitches  are  also  employed,  the  most  com- 
mon being  the  grille  or  half-stitch  (sketch  m.). 

The  different  varieties  of  bobbin  laces  made 
with  cut  threads,  or  in  repeated  pieces  are : 
a.    Bruges  (the  flowers  are  united  by  brides  or 
bars   that  are  braided   with   four   threads 
(sketch  n.). 
h.    Duchesse    (made    only    with    fine    thread, 
loosely  worked  and  producing  a  not  par- 
ticularly pleasing  result). 
c.    Rosaline    (an    imitation    with    bobbins    of 
Rose    Point.      Erodes,    or    raised    outlines 
made  with  the  needle,  give  it  relief). 
4.    Flanders  (in  this  lace  the  base  of  brides  or 
bars  is  replaced  by  a  net  mesh  base  exe- 
cuted with  a  needle). 
e.   Application    (the    flowers,    executed    like 

those  of  Bruges  are  sewed  upon  tulle). 
2.    Lace    made    with    uncut    or    continuous 


APPENDIX  293 

threads.  Laces  of  this  group  are  executed  on  a 
stationary  cushion.  The  design,  before  it  can 
be  used  by  the  worker,  must  pass  through  the 
hands  of  a  piquese,  or  interpreter,  who  prepares 
what  is  called  the  patron  or  pattern  (sketch  o), 
that  is  to  say,  determines  in  advance  the  places 
where  the  pins  destined  to  hold  the  threads,  must 
be  placed  (sketch  of  a  piqure,  p.).  This  work  of 
the  piquese  demands  great  skill  and  infinite 
patience.  Upon  her  interpretation  will  depend 
the  aspect  of  the  lace,  for  the  worker  follows  her 
indications  rigidly.  This  pattern  is  pricked  on  a 
supple  and  resistant  cardboard  (in  olden  times  it 
was  made  on  parchment)  and  is  pinned  to  the 
cushion  with  the  selvage  of  the  lace  at  the  left. 
The  worker  then  attaches  to  a  row  of  pins  placed 
all  across  the  top  of  the  pattern,  the  threads 
which  she  will  need,  often  many  hundreds. 

Now  she  commences  her  work,  braiding,  twist- 
ing, intercrossing  the  threads  in  diverse  ways, 
and  placing  a  pin  each  time  the  threads  must  be 
held  in  a  position  which  they  can  not  retain  with- 
out the  aid  of  a  fixt  support.  When  she  arrives 
at  the  bottom  of  her  pattern,  with  great  care  she 
takes  out  all  the  pins,  and  lifts  her  work  to  the 
top  of  the  pattern,  replacing  the  pins  so  that  the 
lace  will  be  kept  absolutely  regular.  She  then 
recommences  her  work  of  braiding  or  weaving, 


294  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 


oOq  n  CP 


£> 


^^^ 


Q 


O 


O 


(3.   Pattern    from   which   piqure  is   made 


•  •  •^*-*  •  •••••  ••  •  'y*^*  •  •  •     •  •  • 


/>.  Piqure 


APPENDIX 


^95 


q.  Valenciennes  mesh 


repeating  the  same  operation  till  the  length  of 
lace  she  must  make  is  finished.  The  patterns  are 
usually  about  a  foot  long. 


296  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

The  bobbin  laces  made  with  continuous  thread 
comprise : 

a.  Cluny  and 

b.  Laces  with  a  mesh  base : 

1.  Valenciennes, 

2.  Binche, 

3.  Malines, 

4.  Point  de  Paris, 

5.  Point  de  Lille, 

6.  Chantilly. 

The  varieties  in  Group  b  may  truly  be  called 
woven  lace,  because  they  contain  a  veritable  tis- 
sue in  which,  tho  the  threads  are  combined  in 
such  a  way  as  to  produce  more  or  less  open 
effects,  the  opaque  parts  are  woven  regularly, 
that  is  as  linen  is  woven.  The  pattern  of  the 
mesh  of  each  of  these  laces  is  different. 

Valenciennes  (sketch  q.). 

Binche  (sketch  r  and  s.). 

Malines  (sketch  t.). 

Point  de  Paris  (sketch  u.). 

Point  de  Lille  (sketch  v.). 

Further,  Malines,  Chantilly,  Point  de  Lille, 
and  Point  de  Paris  are  characterized  by  the  pres- 
ence of  the  bourdon,  or  heavy  thread,  slightly 
twisted,  outlining  all  the  details  of  the  design. 

Grammont,  or  Chantilly  lace,  is  usually  made 
of  black  silk  thread.     The  mesh  is  the  same  as 


APPENDIX  297 

that  of  Point  de  Lille.  In  it  the  toile  is  replaced 
by  the  grille,  which  adds  greatly  to  the  lightness 
of  the  effect. 


r.  Binche  mesh 


N.  B. — To  be  understood  technically,  all  these 
laces  made  with  continuous  thread  should  be  con- 
sidered from  the  point  of  view  of  the  place  they 


298 


BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 


occupy  on  the  cushion  of  the  worker:   They  are 
held  vertically  with  the  selvage  at  the  left. 


s.  Mesh  of  "snow-ball"  pattern,  used  in  Binche 


It  is  necessary  to  mention  with  these  laces, 
Torchon,  the  most  common  of  all,  which  has  little 
artistic  value,  and  has  entered  more  and  more 
into  the  domain  of  the  machine.  Torchon  base 
(sketch  w.). 


APPENDIX 


d9d 


SOO  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 


V.  Point  de  Lille  mesh 


APPENDIX  901 


w.  Torchon  base 


302 


BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 


Group  A. — Cluny  laces  demand  great  ingenu- 
ity in  execution.  The  most  simple  are  made  en- 
tirely by  braiding  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  an 
effect  of  interlacing  (sketch  y.)-    The  braids  are 


X.  Picot 


y.  Cluny  pattern 

formed  of  four  threads ;  when  the  interlacing  is 
more  important  they  become  more  complicated.  At 
times  the  braids  group  themselves  to  form  the  flat 
surface  or  toile  which  later  will  resolve  again  into 
braids.  They  unite  and  part,  sometimes  dividing 
into  strands  (brides)  of  two  threads  according  to 
the  lines  of  the  design.     This  design  should  be 


APPENDIX 


503 


Z.  Interpreted  Torchon  pattern 


„.„iiiii 


Completed  lace 


304  BOBBINS  OF  BELGIUM 

absolutely  precise.  And  since  in  it  the  future 
employment  of  each  thread  must  be  constantly 
foreseen,  it  is  quite  impossible  to  compose  a 
Cluny  lace  pattern  without  a  knowledge  of  the 
technique  of  that  lace  (sketch  y  ). 

Sometimes  the  general  name  guipure  is  given 
to  Cluny,  as  well  as  to  all  laces  made  with  con- 
tinuous thread  which  have  not  a  mesh  base. 


INDEX 


305 


INDEX 


Aersecle,  110 
Albert   King,   194 
Alcantara,  Comtesse  d',  252 
Alengon   (town),  31 
Alen^on  lace,  38,  132 
Allard,    Mme.    Josse,     169, 

172,  209 
Alost,  Lace  region  of,  149, 

169ff,  224 
Spinneries  of,  82 


Antwerp,  Old  Flanders  in, 
115 

Port  of,  30,  166 

Province  of,  146 
Application  lace^  226,  241 

Areas  producing,  277 

Bobbins  for,  289 

Lacets  for,  171 

Method  of  making,  221  ff, 
292 

Restoration   of,  256 


*.,  ,  ,^  o-,r        Tulle  base  for,  41,  259 

America,  Aid  from,  17,  235,  ^rdois    109 

236  Argentin  lace,  38 

Lace  buyer  of,  252  Arras,  31 

Laces  displayed  in,  40  Asper,  252 
Americans  in  Ghent,  248 

Amies  de  la  Dentelle,  Bachte,  252 

Convent     subsidized     by,  Baelegem,  251 


218 

Lace  quality  conservation 
by,  100,  272 

Prices  under,  103 

School  reforms  under,  15 

War  committee,  see  Brus- 
sels Lace  Committee 
Antik    lace,    see    Flanders,   Beth,  Thread  firm  of,  81 
Pld  Bethune,  Baron  de,  85 

307 


Bailleul,  34 

Devastation  of,  36 
Bayeux,  131 
Beernem,  123 
Beguinage  of  Bruges,  154ff 

of  Ghent,  155 
Berraly's     convent.     Abbe, 
53ff 


308 


INDEX 


Beughem.     Vicomtesse     de, 

17,  127,  169 
Binche   lace,    115,    150,    152, 
166 
Areas  producing.  277 
Mesh   designs,  297,  298 
Method    of    making,    40, 
296 
Bixio,   M.,  27 
Blonde  lace,  40 

Method   of   making,   134 
Bobbin  lace,  2>1 
Areas      producing,      97ff, 

144ff 
Method    of    making,    39, 

287ff 
Teaching,  161 
Varieties  of,  39,  40,  292, 
296 
Bousies,  Comtesse  de,  249 
Brabant,     Lace     area     of, 
215ff 
Province  of,   146 
Bruges    (town\  30,  51,  87, 
91.    124.   247 
Lace  region  of,  143f? 
Lace   Normal   School   of, 
76,  100 
Bruges  lace,  241,  249.  257 
Areas     producing,     143  ff, 

277 
Collars  and  cuffs,  113 
Duchesse,    40,     149,    150, 

152 
Method  of  making,  292 
Old,  109 


Point  de,   104 
Rosaline  and,  226ff 
Bruggen,    Mme.    Van    der, 

123 
Brussels  (town),  19,  21,  85, 

204,  210,  216,  217,  232, 

241,  253 
German   "  Lace  Control  " 

in.  122 
Museum,  26,  42,  86 
Point  d'Angleterre  in.  223 
School  of  Design,  76,  165, 

279 
Brussels  lace, 
Duchesse,  40,  237,  241 
Point.   39,    179,    182,   283, 

286 
Method  of  making  Brus- 
sels Point,  286 
Brussels    Lace    Committee, 

127.   148,  151.  195 
Agency,    purchasing    and 

sales.  108.  116.  174,  182, 

206.  210.  225.  237.  241 
Designs  of,  58,  193,  242 
Educational   aims   of,   56. 

75,  115 
German  interference  with, 

123,  238 
Improvements  through,  36, 

53,  121 
Map  of  lace  areas,  276 
Origin    and    purpose    of, 

15fT 
Personnel  of,  17 
Prices   paid  by,   103,  112, 

123,    124,   254 


INDEX 


309 


Brussels  Lace  Committee — 

Continued 

Representatives    of,     105, 
118,   149,  236,  252 

Thread  supply  for,  82,  88 
Burano  lace,  39 
Bysance,   26 

Calais,  35,  172 
Celine,  250 

Chantilly  lace,  40,  205 
Areas     producing,     127ff, 

277 
Method  of  making,  296 
Cinquantenaire  Museum,  26, 

42,  86 
Claterna,    Ancient    bobbins 

of,  27 
Cluny  lace.  28,  44,  89,  94,  98. 
111.   118.   123,   149,   150, 
152,  162,  225,  237,  251 
Areas    producing,   277 
Designs,  302 
Duty  on,  90 
Guipures    of,    99,    103,    104, 
113.  149 
Method    of    making,    39, 
296.  302.  304 
Coates,  Thread  iirm  of,  82 
Cock,  Gillemont  de,  148,  166 
Colbert.   31 
Colette,  179 
Collart.  M.,  17 
Comite    National,   Coopera- 
tion of.  16.  17,  19 
Relief  work  of,  216,  235 
Commission    for    Relief    in 
Belgium,  120,  236 


Cooperation  of,  16,  19,  135 
Compagnie  des  Indes,  17 
Convents.   Lace-making 

Bruges,   149 

Cruyshautem,  202 

Eecke.  252 

Erembodeghem,    189ff 

Heckelgem,  215fF 

Kerxken,    173 

Liedekerke.   218ff 

Opbrakel,  201  ff 

Ruysselede,  252,  255 

Scheldewinkle.  252 

Thielt,  105,  110 

Turnhout,  53ff 
Coppens,  Mme.,  256ff,  265 
Courtrai  lace  region,  79ff 
Cox,  Thread  firm  of,  81 
Cruyshautem   convent,  202 
Cuseners,  Mme.,  129 

Designs    of    various    laces, 

278flF 
Destelbergen,  224,   251,  256 
Deynze  district.  252,  253 
Dixmude,  87,  143 
Duchesse  lace.  98.  123,  163, 

249,  251,  252,  255 

Areas  producing,  277 

Bobbins  for.  289 

Bruges.  40.  149.  150,  152 

Brussels,  40.  237,  241 

Guipures,  99 

Method  of  making,  292 

Eecke  convent,  252 
Egypt.  26 


SlO 


INDEX 


Elizabeth,  Queen,  17 

Laces  for,  38,  193fif,  270ff 

Patronage  of,  15 
England,  30 

Thread  from,  19,  82 

Tulle  from,  35 
Erembodeghem,  185,  210 

Lace  region  of,  189flf 

Flanders     (district).     Lace 
industry  in  30,  43ff,  146 
Flanders   lace,    41,   99,    163, 
237,  241,  251 
Details  of,  224,  114ff 
Guipures  of,  113 
Method  of  making,  292 
Old,    40.    Ill,    114ff,    150, 
152,  166,  225 
France,  History  of  lace  in, 

30ff 
Fianciscaine    Sisters,    173ff, 

189ff,  201 ff 
Friends  of  Lace,  see  Amies 

de  la  Dentelle 
Furnes,  87,  271 

Gand,  Canton  de,  248 
German     depredations,     51, 
59,  80,  82ff,  88,  231 
f.cteurs,  88,  119 
interference      with      lace 
workers,    18,    105,    110, 
119,     120ff,     157ff,     174, 
190,  219,  237fif 
"Lace  Control,"  20,   120ff 


Ghent,  30,  87,  143,  147 
Beguinage  of,  155 
Lace  Committee,  249flf 
Lace  region  of,  247ff 
Spinneries  of,  82 

Graeht,  Baron  van  der,  105, 
108,  114 
Mile,  van  der,  105 

Grammont,     Chantilly    lace 
region,  127fr,  206,  296 

Greeks,  26 

Grenadine  d'Alays,  139 

Groothuis  museum,  151 

Gulleghem.  92 

Gysenzeele,  251 

Hainaut,   Province  of,  146 

Haltaert,  170 

Hansbeek,  255 

Hebrews,  26 

Heckelgem  convent,  215ff 

Henry,  Mrs.  Bayard,  92 

Herzele   lace   region,  231flf 

Holland,  30 
Lace  for  Queen  of,  207 

Hoover,  Herbert  C,  18 
Mrs.  Herbert  C,  193 

Hours  of  lace  workers,  65flf 
lllff  217,  228,  255,  268 

Imitations,   17,  41,   171,  183 
of  Chantilly,  132,  138 
of  Point  d'Angleterre,  221 

Import  duty  on  lace,  90 

Ireland,  Thread  from,  82 

Iseghem,  98 

Italy,   15,36 
Ancient  bobbins  in,  27 
History  of  lace  in,  29 


INDEX 


311 


Kefer-Mali,    Mme.,    17,   42, 

215,  221 
Kerxken  lace  region,  169flf, 

224 
Knesselars,  251 

Lace  areas,  List  and  Map  of, 
276ff 
History  of,  25ff 
Methods  of  making,  279flf 
Schools,    146,    147,   242flf 
Amies    de    la    Dentelle 

and,   ISflf,  76 
Chantilly,  129,  131 
Convent,  53ff  105,  149ff, 
177,   190ff,  205ff,  215, 
218flf.  252 
Coppens',    256 
Normal,  100,  llOff,  152, 

156ff.  273 
Trade  Union,  265ff 
Varieties   of,   see   Bobbin 
lace  and  Needle  lace 
Landsanter,  251 
Liedekerke  lace  region,  215ff 
Liedt's     collection,     Baron, 

151 
Lille,  30,  34 
Lootenhulle,  252,  255 
Louis  XIII,  32 
Louis  XIV,  31,  32,  33 
Louis   Philippe,  35 
Lys   River   valley   flax,   30, 
79ff 

Machelin,  252 


Maertens,     Professor,     148, 

156 
Maldeghem,  149 
Malines   (town)   30,  86,  248 
Malines  lace,  40,   100 

Areas  producing,  277 

Bobbins  for,  288,  289 

Mesh  design,  299 

Method   of   making,   73f{, 
296 

Old  laces,  86 

Point  de  Lille  and,  71,  72 
Map  of  lace  areas,  276 
Margharita  of  Italy,  Queen, 

15 
Maria  Loop,   110 
Marie  Antoinette,  33 
Marie-Henriette,       Duchess 

of  Brabant,  249 
Marie-Therese,        Empress, 

248 
Menin,  87 
Mercier,    Cardinal,  239 

Malines  lace  of,  75 
Milan  lace,  104 

Guipure  of,  114 
Mullie,  Mile.,  87,  89,  90 
Museum,  Brussels,  26,  42,  86 

Courtrai,  85 

Groothuis,  151 

Needle  lace,  37fi,  201,  206, 
208ff,  273 
Method  of  making,  279ff 
Varieties  of,  38ff,  286 


312 


INDEX 


Needle    Point    lace,    44    99, 
162,   169,   189,  202.  223. 
248.  249,  251,  252,  269, 
270 
Areas  producing,  277 
Method  of  making,  178ff, 
286 
New  York,  90 
Nieuport.  87,  143,  271 
Ninove,  128 

Spinneries  of,  82 
Northcliffe's   posters,   L.ord, 
240 

Oedelem,  123 
Oostcamp,  123,  149 
Oosterzele.  251 
Opbrakel  convent,  189,  201  ff 
Oultremont,  Comtesse  Eliza- 
beth d',  17 

Paisley  spinneries,  82 
Pare,  Comte  du,  231fif 

Mme.  du,  231ff 
Paris    lace   market,   69,   90, 

196,  223 
Paulis,  Mme.  Lucie.  165.  279 
Peat,  Thread  firm  of,  93,  134 
Persia,  26 
Pittham,  109 
Point  d'  Alengon,  132 
d'Angleterre.  181.221.241, 
260 

Method  of  making.  40, 
223flf 
de  Bruges,  104 
de  Flanders,  224ff 


de  Gaze,  179,  283 
d'Hollande,  72 

Areas  producing,  277 
de  Lille,  40, 
Areas  producing,  277 
Mesh    design,    300 
Method  of  making,  71, 
296 
de  Milan,  104 
de  Paris,  40,  134 

Areas  producing,  277 
Bobbins   for.  289 
Mesh  design.  299 
Method  of  making,  62, 

296 
Various  uses  of,  69,  71 
de    Venise,   see   Venetian 
Point 
Pompadour,  Marquise  de.  33 
Poperinghe.  87,  271 
Prices  paid  for  lace,  88,  103, 
117,   183.    196.  217,   254 
Prices  paid  for  supplies,  88, 

93 
Priestess  of  Hathor,  27 
Puy.  Thread  firm  of,  93 

Reims,  31 
Reticella,  286 
Retreats.  154ff 
Rippenhausen,  Freiherr  von, 

121 
Robertine.  Soeur,  174flf,  197 
Rond  mesh,  91 
Roose,  Mme.,  151 
Rosalie,  217 


INDEX 


313 


Rosaline    lace,    40,152,   221, 
223,  237,  241,  249,  255 
Areas  producing,  277 
Method  of  making,  226fif, 
292 
Rose  point  lace,  39,  195,  292 

Method  of  making,  286 
Rubbens,  Dr.  Armand,  162, 

267  flf 
Rudder,  M.  de,  193 
Rulant,  Adele,  172 
Russian  lace,  163 
Ruysselede,  110,  252,  255 
Ryeland,  Mme.,  149 

St.  Andre,  149 

St.  Croix,  149 

St.  Michel,  149,  153 

St.  Pierre  des  Calais,  132 

Scheldewinkle  convent,  252 

Schools,  see  Lace  schools 

Sedan,  31 

Sharlaecken,  Mme.,  17 

Sicily,  30 

Sidonie,  178 

Sister  A.,  190ff, 

Sister  M.,  220fif 

Sister  S.,  195 

Slock,  Mile.,  118 

Spain,  Blonde  lace  for,  40, 

134 
Stephanie,  257ff,  265ff 
Stoop,  M.  de,  79,  84 
Syria,  26 
Syssele,  149 

Thielt  lace  region,  97ff 
Thourout   lace   region,   97ff 


Torchon  lace,  40,  94,  99,  150, 
152,  298 
Areas  producing,  277 
Bobbins   for,  289 
Designs  of,  301.  303 
Teaching  of,  162 
Turnhout,  43,  135,  143,  144, 
165 
Lace  region  of,  49ff 

Union  Patriotique  des  Fem- 
mes   Beiges,   17 

Valenciennes     (town),     30, 
34.  147 


Valenciennes  lace,  ;^,  40,  85, 

89,  94,  99,  102,  105,  123, 

149,   150,  151,   152,   155, 

156,   163,    166,   248,   249 

Areas  producing,  79ff,  87, 

277 
Bobbins  for,  288 
-  DjJty  on,  90 
Mesh,  27.  41,  71.  90 
Mesh  design,  295 
Method  of  making,  296 
Prices  paid  for,  254ff 
School  for,  110,  252 
Values  of  lace,   31,   88.  90, 
225.  269 
See  also  Prices 
Van  Hoeimessen,  Cure,  176 
Venetian  Point  lace,  206 
Medallions,  192,  210 
Varieties  of,  39 
See  also  Venise 
Venice,  29.  30,  144,  206 


314  INDEX 

Venise  lace,  39,  169,  182,  189,  112ff,  124,  172,  218,  228, 

216,  237,  251,  252  250,  258,  268 

Areas  producing,  277  Wevelghem,  92 

Method    of    making,    178,  Whitlock,  Mrs.   Brand,   16 

192,  285,  286  Wynghene  lace  region,  97ff 

"Queen's  Cloth"  of,  193fif  Burgomaster  of,   118 

Vynck,  252,  254  Ypres,  36,  87,  90,  143,  271 

Wages    paid    lace    workers,  Zele,  Lace  school  at,  76,  162, 

44,  65,  7i,  89,  92,  110,  265flf 


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